THE 

L^DEATH  OF  CHRISi; 

ITS  PLACE  AND  INTERPRETATION 

IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 


BY 


JAMES    DENNEY,    D.D. 

PROFESSOR  OK    NEW  TESTAMEKT    LANGUAGE,    LITERATURE,   AND    THEOUXIV 
UNITED   FREE   CHURCH   COLLEGE,   GLASGOVT 


THIRD   EDITION 


NEW  YORK 

A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON 

3  &  s  West  i8th  Street,  meab  stb  Avenue 
MCMIII 


PREFACE 

The  subject  of  this  book  must  not  be  ex- 
tended beyond  the  promise  of  the  title. 
It  is  not  an  exhaustive  treatise  on  the 
Atonement  or  on  Justification  :  it  is  an. 
examination  of  the  New  Testament  teach- 
ing on  the  Death  of  Christ. 

That  the  death  of  Christ  has  a  place  in 
the  New  Testament  which  demands  for  it 
the  most  careful  consideration  will  not  be 
questioned  by  any  one ;  and  though  the 
ground  has  often  been  traversed,  in  whole 
or  in  part,  before,  there  are  reasons  which 
justify  at  the  present  time  such  a  study 
as  follows.  One  is  that,  so  far  as  the 
writer  can  judge,  the  death  of  Christ  has 
not  the  place  assigned  to  it,  either  in 
preaching  or  in  theology,  which  it  has  in 
the  New  Testament.  There  have  been 
conspicuous  examples  of  essays  and  even 
treatises  on  the  Atonement,  standing  in  no 


Ti  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

discoverable  relation  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  proportions  of  average  current 
Christianity  are  not  those  of  apostolic 
Christianity ;  and  if  the  latter  is  in  any 
sense  normal,  it  is  desirable  that  we  should 
rectify  our  impressions  by  it  To  aid  in 
this,  by  setting  the  death  of  Christ  in  that 
relief  in  which  it  stands  out  in  the  New 
Testament,  is  part  of  the  writer's  purpose. 
Further,  the  critical  investigation  of  Scrip- 
ture, which  has  been  the  task  of  the  last 
two  generations,  necessitates  a  fresh  survey 
of  the  ground  in  the  light  which  it  con- 
tributes. It  is  not  possible,  in  a  study 
which  touches  upon  almost  every  bbok  in 
the  New  Testament,  to  enter  in  detail  into 
all  the  critical  questions  which  might  be 
raised :  this  would  be  to  exhaust  another 
science  by  way  of  preliminary.  The  writer 
has  tried  to  say  what  seemed  essential  where 
the  questions  raised  are  of  real  importance, 
and  for  the  rest  he  can  only  beg  his  readers 
to  believe  that  he  does  not  write  in  ignor- 
ance of  them.  A  further  justification  for 
such  a  study  as  this  at  the  present  moment 
may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  an  adequate 
apprehension  of  New  Testament  teaching 


PREFACE  vii 

on  Christ's  death  will  be  found  to  contain 
the  solution,  or  some  contribution  towards 
the  solution,  of  many  practical  and  theo- 
logical problems  which  are  exercising  the 
mind  of  the  Church.  On  this  something 
has  been  said  in  the  last  chapter. 

Of  all  subjects,  the  death  of  Christ  is 
probably  the  one  in  regard  to  which  it  is 
least  possible  to  urge  the  familiar  distinc- 
tion between  theology  and  religion.  There 
is  such  a  distinction,  no  doubt ;  religion  is 
one  thing,  and  theology  is  another.  But 
it  is  not  an  absolute  distinction.  The  two 
things  are  not  two  which  have  nothing  to 
do  with  one  another ;  they  have  a  common 
root;  there  is  a  point  at  which  they  meet 
and  are  inextricably  involved  in  each  other, 
and  that  point  is  the  Cross  of  Christ,  in- 
terpreted as  the  New  Testament  interprets 
it.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  writer's  convic- 
tion. Hence  it  has  been  no  part  of  his 
intention  to  affect  an  insensibility  which  he 
did  not  feel,  or  to  discuss  the  death  of 
Christ  as  though  it  were  a  matter  of  entire 
indifference  whether  the  apostolic  interpre- 
tation of  it  had  anything  in  it  or  not.  He 
ventures  to  claim  for  what  he  has  written 


viii  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

a  scientific  character,  in  the  full  sense  of 
the  word ;  but  in  Christian  science  it  is 
not  required  that  a  man  be  indifferent  to 
Christianity.  When  we  speak  abstractly, 
we  may  distinguish  theology  and  religion  ; 
when  we  speak  of  the  death  of  Christ,  if 
we  are  to  say  anything  which  has  reality 
in  it,  the  distinction  must  disappear.  If 
kings  were  philosophers  or  philosophers 
kings,  we  should  have  the  ideal  state, 
according  to  Plato.  If  evangelists  were  our 
theologians  or  theologians  our  evangelists, 
we  should  at  least  be  nearer  the  ideal 
church.  The  writer  would  like  to  believe 
that  in  the  following  pages  he  has  done 
something  to  bridge  the  gulf  between  them. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

VACH 

Conception  of  the  New  Testament :  its  unity  not 

artificial,     ......  I 

Misused    distinctions :    historical    and    dogmatic, 

biblical  and  systematic,  material  and  formal,     .  4 

The  death  of  Christ  a  real  subject  in  the  New 

Testament,  •  •  .  »  •  8 

Outline  of  study,  .        ,  «  ,  ,  «         9 


CHAPTER    I 

THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 

The  mind  of  Christ  and  the  mind  of  the  evangelists,  1 1 
The   idea  that  our  Lord's  death  must  have  been 

foreign  to  His  mind  when  He  entered  on  His 

work,  .  .  .  .  .  .11 

Relation  to  this  idea  of  the  narratives  of  His  Bap> 

tism  and  Temptation,       .  .  .  .13 

Significance  of  the  Baptism  in  particular,      .  .         18 

The  first    suggestions    of   our   Lord's    death    and 

allusions  to  it,       .  .  .  .  .22 

The  taking  away  of  the  Bridegroom  (Mark  ii.  19), 

and  the  sign  of  Jonah  (Matt.  xii.  40),      .  .        23 

The  express  predictions  of  the   Passion  :    critical 

questions  connected  with  them,  .  .  .26 

(Mark  viii.  31,  Mark  ix.  31,  Mark  x.  32,  and  parallels) 

— their  historicity,  ,  .  .  .28 


X  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

fAOB 

Sense  in  which  Christ's  death  was  necessary : 

(a)  Inevitable  ? .  .  .  .  .29 

(6)  Indispensable?        ....        29 

Relation  of  these  two  conceptions  in  the  mind  of 

Jesus,         ......        31 

Bearing  of  Old  Testament  Scripture  on  this  point,  .        34 
What  the  unintelligence  of  the  disciples  meant,       .        35 
The  Ransom  saying : 

Its  historical  context,   .  .  ,  #36 

Its  interpretation — 
(a)  Hollmann's  view  criticised,        •  .40 

(^)Wendt's  „  „  .  .        41 

Clue  to  the  meaning — 

(a)  In  other  words  of  Jesus,  .  .        42 

(6)  In  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,        .        43 
The  meaning  of  K6pher  as  the  equivalent  of 
\\)Tpov,  ,  ,  .  .  .44 

The  Lord's  Supper : 

Views  of  Spitta  and  HoUmann  criticised,        .        46 
The  idea  of  covenant-blood:  relation  of  sacrifice  in 

general  to  propitiation,     .  .  .  .50 

Exodus  xxiv.  and  Jeremiah  xxxi.  in  relation  to  the 

words  of  Jesus,      .....         53 

The  idea  that   '  the   remission   of  sins '   in   Matt. 
xxvi.  28  is  put  into  a  relation  to  Christ's  death 
which  is  inconsistent  with  His  teaching  as  a 
whole,        ....  ,56 

Propitiation  a  mode  of  mediation,      .  •  •        58 


CHAPTER    II 

THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN   PREACHmO 

Results  of  last  chapter  in  relation  to  our  Lord's 
experience  in  Gethsemane  and  on  the  Cross — 
not  refuted  but  illustrated,  .  ,  .61 

Original  attitude  of  the  disciples  to  the  words  of 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAOX 

The  Resurrection  :  the  intercourse  of  the  Risen 
Christ  with  the  disciples  according  to  the  New 
Testament — critical  problems,     .  .  .66 

The  great  commission : 

Matt,  xxviii.  i8  ff.,  Mark  xvi.  15  f.,  Luke  xxiv. 

47  f.,  John  XX.  21  f,    .  .  .  .68 

Refers  either  (a)  to  Baptism,  or  (6)  to  For- 
giveness,        .....        73 
In  the  New  Testament  these  are  inter-related  and 

related  to  the  death  of  Jesus,       .  .  .74 

Importance   of  this  for   the    unity   of  the    New 

Testament,  .  .  .  .  .75 

The  opening  chapters  of  Acts  : 

Critical  problems  again,  .  ,  •75 

Primitive  character  of  the  Christology,  .        76 

Prominence  of  the  Resurrection — why  ?         .  -77 

Refutation  of  the  idea  that  the  death  of  the  Messiah 
is  only  an  offence  which  the  Resurrection  en- 
ables the  disciples  to  overcome,  .  .  .78 
How   the    earliest   Christian    preaching  made  the 

death  of  Christ  intelligible,  .  .  .78 

Its  connection  (i)  with  a  divine  purpose,       .  .        80 

(2)  with  the  prophecy  of  the  Servant 

of  the  Lord,       .  .  .81 

(3)  with  the  forgiveness  of  sins,         .        82 
The  Sacraments  in  Acts,  and  their  significance  in 

this  connection,     .....        83 
The  First  Epistle  of  St.  Peter : 

Its  '  Pauline '  features, .  .  .  ,85 

A  *  witness  '  to  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  •        87 

The  important  passages : 

(i)  The  salutation,  i.  i  f. — the  sprinkling  of 
the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ — relation  to 
Exodus  xxiv.,  ....  89 
(a)  '  Redeemed  from  a  vain  conversation,' 
i.  i8  f — originality  of  this  idea— what 
it  leaves  unexplained,    .  .  .91 

(3)  '  Who  Himself  bore  our  sins,'  ii.  20  flF. — 
raingling  of  prophecy  and  testimony — 


xii  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 


PACB 


Christ's  sufferings  exemplary,  yet  more 
— what  it  is  to  bear  sin— sin-bearing 
and  substitution — the  purpose  of  Christ 
in  bearing  our  sins,         .  .  .94 

(4)  '  Who  died  for  sins  once,  the  just  for  the 
unjust ' — aim  of  this  :  to  conduct  us  to 
God,        .....      loi 

Imitation  of  Christ  conditioned  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  redemption,  .  .  •  •      105 

The  Second  Epistle  ascribed  to  Peter,  «  •      106 


CHAPTER    III 

THE  EPISTLES  OF  ST.  PAUL 

Preliminary  considerations  affecting  the  estimate 

of  St.  Paul's  whole  treatment  of  this  subject :  108 

(i)  The  assurance  with  which  he  preaches 
a  gospel  in  which  Christ's  death  is 
fundamental — his  'intolerance,'  .       109 

(2)  The  relation  of  his  doctrine  to  the  com- 

mon Christian  tradition,  .  .       iii 

(3)  Alleged  development  in  his  teaching,  and 

inferences  from  such  development,       .       1 14 

(4)  'Experimental'  and  'apologetic'  elements 

in  it — 'testimony'  and  'theology' — 
'fact'  and  'theory':  these  distinctions 
criticised,  .  .  .  .117 

(5)  Connection  in  St.  Paul's  mind  of  Christ's 

death  and  resurrection, .  .  .       121 

Relations  in  which  St.  Paul  de6nes  Christ's  death  : 

(i)  To  the  love  of  God,  .  .  .123 

(2)  To  the  love  of  Christ,         .  .  .125 

(3)  To  the  sin  of  men.    Connection  of  sin 

and  death  as  He  conceived  it — death 
must  be  interpreted  through  the  con- 
science— Mdndgoz  on  an  alleged  in- 
coherence of  the  apostle,  .  .126 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAoa 
The  witness  of  the  epistles  on  these  points  : 

1  Thessalonians  v.  lo,  *  Who  died  for  us  that 
whether  we  wake  or  sleep  we  should 
live  together  with  Him,'  .  .130 

1  Corinthians  —  general  references  —  '  the 

word  of  the  Cross' — 'bought  with  a 
price* — the  passages  on  the  Sacra- 
ments in  ch.  X.  and  ch.  xi.  —  ex- 
treme importance  of  these — Christ  our 
Passover,  .  .  .  .132 

2  Corinthians — 'the    sufferings    of    Christ* 

and  '  the  dying  of  Jesus '  in  ch.  i.  and 

ch.  iv.,     .  .  .  .  .139 

The  locus  classicus  in  v.  14  ff. — professedly 
contains  a  theory :  Christ  died  our 
death,      .  .  .  .  .      140 

Meaning  of  jcaraXXay^  (Reconciliation)  in 
St.  Paul  —  Christ's  finished  work  — 
necessity  for  evangelising  that  there 
should  be  such  a  work,  .  .  .       143 

Christ  made   sin   for  us :   meaning  and 

purpose  of  this,  ....       147 

Religious  and  ethical,  theological  and  psy- 
chological, expressions  of  the  same 
idea  :  how  they  support  each  other,  .  149 
Galatians  —  exclusively  occupied  with  this 
subject — Christianity  asserted  as  the 
sum  of  the  effects  produced  by  Christ's 
death,  and  by  that  alone,  .  .150 

Rationale  of  this  as  St.  Paul's  experience  : 
how  Christ's  death  is  conceived  and 
preached  so  as  to  have  the  power 
which  produces  such  effects,     .  .153 

Conception  of  Christ  'under   the   law*: 

what  it  means,    .  .  .  .155 

The   law  (a)  as    expressing   God's 

w/// for  men,  .       155 

{P)   as   expressing  God's 

judgment  on  men, .      1 56 


xi?  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

rAOB 

The  last  is  necessary  to  explain  Gal.  iii.  13, 
and  to  make  it  intelligible  that  Christ's 
death  is  a  demonstration  of  love  to 
the  sinful,       ...  .  .156 

Evasions  of  this  argument : 

(i)  Only    the    ceremonial    law  is   in 

question  in  Galatians,      .  .158 

(2)  Only  the  Jews  are  in  question,        .       159 

(3)  Curse  is  only  equivalent  to  Cross,  .       160 
The  ethical  passages  in  Galatians :  v.  24 

and  vi.  14,  ...  .       162 

Romans — the  Righteousness  of  God  demon- 
strated at  the  Cross,  iii.  21  ff.,    .  .      163 
The  Righteousness  of  God  includes  : 

(1)  the  fact  that  He  is  Himself  righteous,       165 

(2)  that    He    justifies     (or    holds    as 
•   righteous)  him  who  believes  in 

Jesus,         ....       165 
Jesus  Christ  set  forth  in  propitiatory  power 
in  His  blood  is  the  demonstration  of 
this  righteousness  in  both  its  elements,       167 
Attempts  to  obliterate  the  distinction  : 
(i)  Those  which  do  not  see  the  problem 

with  which  the  apostle  is  dealing,      168 

(2)  Those  which  profess  to  find  the  key 

to  St.  Paul  in  2  Isaiah  and  the 
Psalms — Ritschl's  idea  that  the 
righteousness  of  God  always  has 
its  correlate  in  the  righteousness 
of  His  people,        .  .  .       169 

(3)  Seeberg's    view,  that    God   to  be 

righteous  is  bound  to  provide  for 

fellowship  between  Himself  and 

men,  and  is  pleased  to  do  it  in 

this  way,    .  .  .  .17a 

To  understand  St.  Paul,  we  must  discern 

Law  and  Necessity  in  the  relation  of 

Christ's  death  to  sin,      .  .  .       175 

Manner  in   which   St  Paul  deduces   all 


CONTENTS  XT 

PAGB 

Christianity  from  Christ  set  forth  in 

His  blood  as  a  propitiation,       .  .       178 

Criticism  of  the  current  idea  that  He  has 
two  doctrines  of  reconciliation,  a 
'juridical'  and  an  'ethico-mystical' 
one :  views  of  Weiss,  Ritschl,  Holtz- 
mann,      .....       179 

True  relation  of  Romans  vi.  to  Romans  iii.,      183 
Faith  in  Christ  Who  died  includes  in  it  a  death  : 

(i)  to  sin,  .  .  .  .  ,186 

(2)  to  the  flesh,  .  .  .  .187 

(3)  to  law,  .  .  .  .  .190 
Place  of  the  Spirit  in  St.  Paul's  teaching  in  this 

connection,  .....      192 

The  Epistles  of  the   Imprisonment — reconciliation 

extended  from  man  to  the  universe,        .  .      194 

Spiritual  beings  whose  fortunes  are  bound  up  with 

those  of  men :  the  Scripture  support  for  such 

an  idea,  .....'  196 
An  imaginative  expression  for  the  absoluteness  of 

the  Christian  religion,       .  .  .  .199 

Reconciliation  of  men  to  each  other  as  a  fruit  of 

Christ's  death,  .....  200 
The  Pastoral  Epistles,  .  .  .  «      201 


CHAPTER   IV 

■    THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS 

Various  affinities  of  this  epistle  :    primitive    Chris- 
tianity, Paulinism,  Alexandrian  thought,  .      304 
The  most  theological  writing  of  the  New  Testament : 

its  use  of  alwvios,    .....      207 
Relations  of  Christ's  Person  and  work  in  it  accord- 
ing as  we  start  from  : 
(a)  the  Incarnation — Westcott,  .  .      209 

(6)  the  Priesthood — Seeberg,  .  .  .210 

Christ's  death  defined  by  relation  to  God  and  His 


xvi  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

love :  {a)  directly,  ii.  9,  {b)  indirectly  by  allusion 
(1)  to  His  commission,  (2)  to  His  obedience,      .      212 
Christ's  death  defined  by  relation  to  sin  (i.  4  and 

passim)  :  it  is  everywhere  a  sacrificial  death,     .      214 
Sacrifice  in  this  epistle  to  be  interpreted  in  connec- 
tion with  Priesthood,        .  .  .  .217 
Priesthood  represents,  embodies,  and  makes  possible 

a  fellowship  of  God  and  man,      .  .  .      218 

A  priest  is  necessary  in  religion  to  deal  with  sin  by 

way  of  sacrifice,     ....  219 

Ways  of  interpreting  this  : 

(i)  Nature  of  the  relation  between  Christ's 
death  and  sin  deduced  from  the  effect 
on  man  ascribed  to  the  death — mean- 
ing of  iyia^tiVf  T(\ttovv  and  KaOapi^tiv 
in  Hebrews,        ....      220 
(a)  The  effect  on  man  deduced  from  the  con- 
ception of  Christ's  sacrificial  death  as 
Si  finished  work,  ....      224 
What  gives  Christ's  death  its  propitiatory  power  ?    .      225 
Examination  of  ch.   ix.   14 :  *  He  offered   Himself 

through  eternal  spirit,'       ....      227 
The  author  held  the  common  Christian  view  of  the 

relation  of  death  and  sin,  ....      229 
Examination  of  the  passage  in  x.  i-io :  *  to  do  Thy 

will,  O  God,'  .....      230 

In  what  sense  obedience  is  the  principle  of  the 

Atonement,  .....       232 

Connection  between  the  work  of  Christ  and  man's 
salvation  by  it :  the  relation  of  the  ideas  ex- 
pressed by  Substitute  and  Representative,  .      235 
Place  and  meaning  of  faith  in  this  epistle,     .           .      239 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  JOHANNINE  WRITINGS 

Critical  considerations,            •           .           •  •      241 
I.  The  Apocalypse  : 

The  doxology  in  i.   5  f. :  what  inspires  the 

Christian  praise  of  Christ,            .  .      242 


CONTENTS  xvii 

TAGB 

The  Lamb  as  it  had  been  slain  (v.  6-14),         .      245 

The  Blood  of  the  Lanib  (vii.  14,  xii.  11)— con- 
necting links  in  thought,    .  .  .       246 

The  Lamb's  Book  of  Life,        .  .  .      248 

IL  The  Gospel : 

General  representation :  redemption  through 
revelation  rather  than  revelation  through 
redemption — current  contrasts  of  St.  Paul 
and  St.  John  criticised,      .  .  .251 

Place  of  Christ's  death  in  the  gospel  often 

underestimated,      ....      253 
Examination  of  explicit  references  : 

(i)  i.  29  :  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  etc,        .      254 

(2)  ii.  19  :  Destroy  this  Temple,  .  .      255 

(3)  iii.  14,  viii.  28,  xii.  32  :  The  'lifting  up'  of 

the  Son  of  Man — death  as  glorifying,     .       255 

(4)  vi.  5 1  f. :   '  My  flesh  for  the  life   of  the 

world,'       .....  257 

(5)  X.  II  f. :  The  Good  Shepherd,       .  ,  258 

(6)  xi.  49  :  The  prophecy  of  Caiaphas,  .  259 

(7)  xii.  24,  27  :  The  corn  of  wheat,  etc.,  .  260 

(8)  xii.  38  :  The  quotation  of  Isaiah  liii.,         .  260 

(9)  XV.  13:  'Greater  love  hath  no  man  than 

this,'  .....      261 

(10)  xvii.  19 :  '  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  My- 

self,' .....       262 

(11)  xviii.-xix. :  The  story  of  the  Passion,         .      262 
All  this  interpreted  in  relation  to  the  love  of  God 

and  the  necessity  of  men  as  sinners  liable  to 
die  in  their  sins — comparison  with  St.  Paul,      .       263 
in.  The   Epistle  :  comparison  and  contrast  with 

the  Gospel,  .....      269 

(i)  It  defines  Christ's  death  more  explicitly 
by  relation  to  sin,  i.  7  ;  ii.  if.;  iii.  5  ; 
iv.  10.  Criticism  of  Westcott's  interpre- 
tation of '  the  blood  of  Christ,'  .  .  270 
(2)  Conception  of  Christ  as  IXaorfxos  -the  cor- 
relatives of  IXaa-ftos  are  sacrifice,  inter- 
cession, and  law,  .            •           ,            .      272 


xviii  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRISr 

VAOB 

(3)  Propitiation  and  the  love  of  God  defin- 
able only  through  each  other,     .  .275 
Place  of  the  Sacraments  in  the  Gospel  and  First 

Epistle  of  Stjohn— examination  of  i  John  v.  6  f.,       276 
Relation  of  the  historical  and  the  spiritual  in  Chris- 
tianity generally,  .  .  ....      278 


CHAPTER  VI 

IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST   IN   PREACHING 
AND  IN  THEOLOGY 

No    abstract    distinction    to    be    drawn    between 

theology  and  preaching,  ....      282 
Considerations  in  relation  to  preaching : 

(i)  No  gospel  without  Atonement,      .  .      284 

The  sense  of  debt  to  Christ  in  the  New 

Testament,  .  •  .  .285 

The  characteristics  of  the  Atonement  must 
be  reflected  in  the  gospel : 
(a)  Perfection — '  full  salvation  now,'  .      287 
{b)  Assurance — Romish  and  Protes- 
tant tendencies,   .  .  .      288 
(<r)  Finality — what  justification  means,      292 
•   (2)  There  may  be  various  ways  of  approach- 
ing this  central  truth  of  the  Christian 
faith — our  Lord's  method  with  His  dis- 
ciples,       .....      294 
Kierkegaard  on  the  sense  in  which  the 
Father  comes  before  the  Son,  though 
no  man  comes  to  the  Father  but  through 
the  Son,    .....      297 
Relation  in  Christ  of  Example  and  Re- 
conciler— what  is  our  point  of  contact 
with  Christ?          ....      299 
3)  St.  Paul's  meaning  in  delivering  'fint  of 

mil' that  Christ  died  for  our  sins,  •      yoi 


CONTENTS  xix 

PAGB 

(4)  Sense  of  sin  in  relation  to  the  Atonement 

(a)  as  the  condition  of  accepting  or 
understanding  it ;  (^)  as  its  fruit,  .      303 

(5)  The  issues  of  this  gospel — life  or  death,   .      309 
Theological  considerations : 

(i)  The  Atonement  is  the  key  to  the  unity 
and  therefore  to  the  inspiration  of  Scrip- 
ture. The  inspiration  of  Scripture  and 
its  unity  are  correlative  terms,    .  .       313 

(2)  The  Atonement  is  the  proper  evangelical 

foundation  for  a  doctrine  of  the  Person 
of  Christ,  .  .  .  .  .317 

Hamack's  attempt  to  dispense  with  Chris- 
tology — why  it  is  impracticable, .  -319 

(3)  The  Incarnation  not  intelligible  or  cred- 

ible, except  when  defined  by  relation  to 
the  Atonement — speculative,  ethical,  and 
dogmatic  reasons  alleged  against  this — 
view  of  Westcott  carried  to  its  logical 
issue  by  Archdeacon  Wilson.  Grounds 
for  rejecting  this  view  :  .  .  .  .  320 
(a)  It  shifts  the  centre  of  gravity  in 

the  New  Testament,       .  .      324 

(i)  It  puts  metaphysical  questions  in 

the  place  of  moral  ones, .  .       325 

(c)  It    displaces    passion    by    senti- 

mentalism,  .  .  .      327 

(4)  The  Atonement  is  the  basis  for  an  adequate 

doctrine  of  God — sense  in  wh'ch  the 
New  Testament  teaches  that  God  is 
love — sin  as  that  which  is  proof  against 
such  love, .  .  .       ^    .  .      327 

(5)  The   Atonement    at    the    foundation    of 

Christian  ethics  as  of  Christian  life — 
Law  glorified  in  the  Passion  and  made 
an  irresistible,  ethical  impulse,  .  •      53* 


0 


INTRODUCTION 

Two  assumptions  must  be  made  by  any  one  who 
writes  on  the  death  of  Christ  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  first  is,  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  New  Testament ;  and  the  second,  that  the 
death  of  Christ  is  a  subject  which  has  a  real  place 
and  importance  in  it.  The  first  may  be  said  to 
be  the  more  important  of  the  two,  for  the  denial 
of  it  carries  with  it  the  denial  of  the  other. 

At  the  present  moment  there  is  a  strong 
tendency  in  certain  quarters  to  depreciate  the 
idea  of  a  New  Testament  in  the  sense  in  which 
it  has  rightly  or  wrongly  been  established  in  the 
Church.  It  is  pointed  out  that  the  books  which 
compose  our  New  Testament  are  in  no  real 
sense  a  unity.  They  were  not  written  with  a 
view  to  forming  the  volume  in  which  we  now 
find  them,  nor  with  any  view  of  being  related 
to  each  other  at  all.  At  first,  indeed,  they  had 
no  such  relation.  They  are  merely  the  chief 
fragments  that  have  survived  from  a  primitive 
Christian  literature  which  must  have  been  in- 
definitely larger,  not  to  say  richer.  The  unity 
which  they  now  possess,  and  in  virtue  of  which 

A 


«  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

they  constitute  the  New  Testament,  does  not 
belong  to  them  inherently ;  it  is  factitious  ;  it  is 
the  artificial,  and  to  a  considerable  extent  the 
illusive  result  of  the  action  of  the  Church  in 
bestowing  upon  them  canonical  authority.  The 
age  to  which  they  historically  belong  is  an  age  at 
which  the  Church  had  no  '  New  Testament,'  and 
hence  what  is  called  New  Testament  theology  is 
an  exhibition  of  the  manner  in  which  Christians 
thought  before  a  New  Testament  existed.  As 
a  self-contradictory  thing,  therefore,  it  ought  to 
be  abolished.  The  *  dogma  '  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  the  factitious  unity  which  it  has 
created,  ought  to  be  superseded,  and  instead  of 
New  Testament  theology  we  should  aim  at  a 
history  of  primitive  Christian  thought  and  life. 
It  would  not  be  necessary  for  the  purposes  of 
such  a  history  to  make  any  assumptions  as  to 
the  unity  of  the  '  New  Testament '  books ;  but 
though  they  would  not  form  a  holy  island  in 
the  sea  of  history,  they  would  gain  in  life  and 
reality  in  proportion  as  the  dogmatic  tie  which 
binds  them  to  each  other  was  broken,  and  their 
living  relations  to  the  general  phenomena  of 
history  revealed.^ 

There  is  not  only  some  plausibility  in  this  but 
some  truth:   all   I   am  concerned   to   point  out 

*  A«  typical  instances  of  this  mode  of  thought,  reference  may 
be  made  to  Wrede's  Utber  Begriff  und  Aufgabe  der  sogtnannttn 
Ntututamtntlichtn  TkeoUgit,  and  G.  Krttger's  Dt  Dtgmtk  vom 
Nm4H  T0rtmmmt. 


UNITY  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT        3 

here  is  that  it  is  not  the  whole  truth,  and  pos- 
sibly not  the  main  truth.  The  unity  which 
belongs  to  the  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
whatever  be  its  value,  is  certainly  not  fortuitous. 
The  books  did  not  come  together  by  chance. 
They  are  not  held  together  simply  by  the  art  of 
the  bookbinder.  It  would  be  truer  to  say  that 
they  gravitated  toward  each  other  in  the  course 
of  the  first  century  of  the  Church's  life,  and 
imposed  their  unity  on  the  Christian  mind,  than 
that  the  Church  imposed  on  them  by  statute — 
for  when  'dogma*  is  used  in  the  abstract  sense 
which  contrasts  it  with  fact  or  history,  this  is 
what  it  means — a  unity  to  which  they  were 
inwardly  strange.  That  they  are  at  one  in  some 
essential  respects  is  obvious.  They  have  at  least 
unity  of  subject :  they  are  all  concerned  with 
Jesus  Christ,  and  with  the  manifestation  of  God's 
redeeming  love  to  men  in  Him.  There  is  even 
a  sense  in  which  we  may  say  there  is  unity  of 
authorship ;  for  all  the  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  works  of  faith.  Whether  the  unity 
goes  further,  and  if  so  how  far,  are  questions  not 
to  be  settled  beforehand.  It  may  extend  to 
modes  of  thought,  to  fundamental  beliefs  or  con- 
victions, in  regard  to  Christ  and  the  meaning  of 
His  presence  and  work  in  the  world.  It  is  not 
assumed  here  that  it  does,  but  neither  is  it 
assumed  that  it  does  not.  It  is  not  assumed, 
with  regard  to  the  particular  subject  before  us, 


4  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

that  in  the  different  New  Testament  writings  we 
shall  find  independent,  divergent,  or  inconsistent 
interpretations  of  Christ's  death.  The  result  of 
an  unprejudiced  investigation  may  be  to  show 
that  on  this  subject  the  various  writings  which 
go  to  make  up  our  New  Testament  are  pro- 
foundly at  one,  and  even  that  their  oneness  on 
this  subject,  a  oneness  not  imposed  nor  artificial, 
but  essential  and  inherent,  justifies  against  the 
criticism  referred  to  above  the  common  Christian 
estimate  of  the  New  Testament  as  a  whole. 

Without  entering  on  abstract  or  general 
grounds  into  a  discussion  in  which  no  abstract 
or  general  conclusion  can  be  reached,  it  may 
be  permitted  to  say,  in  starting,  that  in  the 
region  with  which  the  New  Testament  deals  we 
should  be  on  our  guard  against  pressing  too 
strongly  some  current  distinctions  which,  within 
their  limits,  are  real  enough,  but  which,  if  carried 
beyond  their  limits,  make  everything  in  the  New 
Testament  unintelligible.  The  most  important 
of  these  is  the  distinction  of  historical  and  dog- 
matic, or  of  historico-religious  and  dogmatico- 
religious.  If  the  distinction  between  historical 
and  dogmatic  is  pressed,  it  runs  back  into  the  dis- 
tinction between  thing  and  meaning,  or  between 
fact  and  theory ;  and  this,  as  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  see,  is  a  distinction  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  press.  There  is  a  point  at  which  the 
two  sides  in  such  contrasts  pass  into  each  other. 


HISTORICAL  AND  DOGMATIC  5 

He  who  does  not  see  the  meaning  does  not  see 
the  thing ;  or  to  use  the  more  imposing  words, 
he  who  refuses  to  take  a  'dogmatic'  view  proves 
by  doing  so  that  he  falls  short  of  a  completely 
*  historical '  one.  The  same  kind  of  consideration 
has  sometimes  to  be  applied  to  the  distinction 
of  '  Biblical '  or  '  New  Testament '  and  *  syste- 
matic '  theology.  Biblical  or  New  Testament 
theology  deals  with  the  thoughts,  or  the  mode 
of  thinking,  of  the  various  New  Testament 
writers ;  systematic  theology  is  the  independent 
construction  of  Christianity  as  a  whole  in  the 
mind  of  a  later  thinker.  Here  again  there  is  a 
broad  and  valid  distinction,  but  not  an  absolute 
one.  It  is  the  Christian  thinking  of  the  first 
century  in  the  one  case,  and  of  the  twentieth, 
let  us  say,  in  the  other ;  but  in  both  cases  there 
is  Christianity  and  there  is  thinking,  and  if  there 
is  truth  in  either  there  is  bound  to  be  a  place 
at  which  the  distinction  disappears.  It  does  not 
follow  from  the  distinction,  with  the  inevitable 
limitations,  that  nothing  in  the  New  Testament 
can  be  accepted  by  a  modern  mind  simply  as  it 
stands.  It  does  not  follow  that  nothing  in  St. 
Paul  or  St.  John — nothing  in  their  interpretation 
of  the  death  of  Jesus,  for  example — has  attained 
the  character  of  finality.  There  may  be  some- 
thing which  has.  The  thing  to  be  dealt  with  is 
one,  and  the  mind,  through  the  centuries,  is  one, 
and  even  in  the  first  century  it  may  have  struck 


6  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

to  a  final  truth  which  the  twentieth  will  not 
transcend.  Certainly  we  cannot  deny  this  before- 
hand on  the  ground  that  Biblical  theology  is  one 
thing  and  Systematic  or  Philosophical  theology 
another.  They  may  be  taught  in  separate  rooms 
in  a  theological  school,  but,  except  to  the  pedant 
or  the  dilettante,  the  distinction  between  them 
is  a  vanishing  one.  And  the  same  may  be  said, 
finally,  about  the  distinction  of  matter  and  form. 
There  is  such  a  distinction :  it  is  possible  to 
put  the  same  matter  in  different  forms.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  form  in  which  a  truth 
or  an  experience  is  put  by  a  New  Testament 
writer  is  always  unequal  to  the  matter,  or  that 
the  matter  must  always  be  fused  again  and  cast 
into  a  new  mould  before  it  can  be  appropriated 
by  us.  The  higher  the  reality  with  which  we 
deal,  the  less  the  distinction  of  matter  and  form 
holds.  If  Christianity  brings  us  into  contact 
with  the  ultimate  truth  and  reality,  we  may  find 
that  the  '  form '  into  which  it  was  cast  at  first  is 
more  essential  to  the  matter  than  we  had  sup- 
posed. Just  as  it  would  be  a  rash  act  to  venture 
to  extract  the  matter  of  Lycidas,  and  to  exhibit 
it  in  a  more  adequate  form,  it  may  be  a  rash  act 
to  venture  to  tell  us  what  St.  Paul  or  St.  John 
meant  in  a  form  more  equal  to  the  meaning 
than  the  apostles  themselves  could  supply.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  say  that  it  would  be,  but 
only  that  it  may  be.     The  mind  seems  to  gain 


MATTER  AND  FORM  7 

freedom  and  lucidity  by  working  with  such  dis- 
tinctions, but  if  we  forget  that  they  are  our  own 
distinctions,  and  that  in  the  real  world,  in  the 
very  nature  of  things,  a  point  is  reached  sooner 
or  later  at  which  they  disappear,  we  are  certain 
to  be  led  astray.  I  do  not  argue  against  draw- 
ing them  or  using  them,  but  against  making  them 
so  absolute  that  in  the  long-run  one  of  them 
must  cease  to  be  true,  and  forfeit  all  its  rights  in 
favour  of  the  other.  The  chief  use,  for  instance, 
to  which  many  writers  put  them  is  to  appeal  to 
the  historical  against  the  dogmatic;  the  historical 
is  employed  to  drive  the  dogmatic  from  the  field. 
To  do  the  reverse  would  of  course  be  as  bad,  and 
my  object  in  these  introductory  remarks  is  to 
deprecate  both  mistakes.  It  does  not  matter,  out- 
side the  class-room,  whether  an  interpretation  is 
called  historical  or  dogmatic,  historico-religious 
or  dogmatico-religious ;  it  does  not  matter 
whether  we  put  it  under  the  head  of  Biblical 
or  of  philosophical  theology ;  what  we  want  to 
know  is  whether  it  is  true.  In  the  truth  such 
distinctions  are  apt  to  disappear. 

Without  assuming,  therefore,  the  dogmatic 
unity  of  the  New  Testament,  either  in  its  repre- 
sentation of  Christianity  as  a  whole,  or  of  the 
death  of  Christ  in  particular,  we  need  not  feel 
precluded  from  approaching  it  with  a  presump- 
tion that  it  will  exhibit  some  kind  of  coherence. 
Granting  that  the  Church  canonised  the  books, 


8  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

consciously  or  unconsciously,  it  did  not  canonise 
them  for  nothing.  It  must  have  felt  that  they 
really  represented  and  therefore  safeguarded  the 
Christian  faith,  and  as  the  Church  of  the  early 
days  was  acutely  conscious  of  the  distinction 
between  what  did  and  what  did  not  belong  to 
Christianity,  it  must  have  had  some  sense  at 
least  of  a  consistency  in  its  Christian  Scriptures. 
They  did  not  represent  for  it  two  gospels  or  ten, 
but  one.  The  view  Christians  took  of  the  books 
they  valued  was  instinctively  dogmatic  without 
ceasing  to  be  historical ;  or  perhaps  we  may  say, 
with  a  lively  sense  of  their  historical  relations 
the  Church  had  an  instinctive  feeling  of  the  dog- 
matic import  of  the  books  in  its  New  Testament. 
It  is  in  this  attitude,  which  is  not  blind  to  either 
side  of  the  distinction,  yet  does  not  let  either 
annul  the  other,  that  we  ought  to  approach  the 
study  of  New  Testament  problems. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  prove  that  in  the 
New  Testament  the  death  of  Christ  is  a  real 
subject.  It  is  distinctly  present  to  the  mind  of 
New  Testament  writers,  and  they  have  much  to 
say  upon  it.  It  is  treated  by  them  as  a  subject 
of  central  and  permanent  importance  to  the 
Christian  faith,  and  it  is  incredible  that  it  should 
have  filled  the  place  it  does  fill  in  the  New 
Testament  had  it  ever  been  regarded  as  of 
trifling  consequence  for  the  understanding,  the 
acceptance,  or  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.     It 


OUTLINE  OF  STUDY  9 

is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  in  using  the 
expression  '  the  death  of  Christ,'  we  are  not 
speaking  of  a  thing,  but  of  an  experience. 
Whether  we  view  it  as  action  or  as  passion, 
whatever  enters  into  personah'ty  has  the  signi- 
ficance and  the  worth  of  personality.  The  death 
of  Christ  in  the  New  Testament  is  the  death  of 
one  who  is  alive  for  evermore.  To  every  New 
Testament  writer  Christ  is  the  Lord,  the  living 
and  exalted  Lord,  and  it  is  impossible  for  them 
to  think  of  His  death  except  as  an  experience 
the  result  or  virtue  of  which  is  perpetuated  in  His 
risen  life.  Nevertheless,  Christ  died.  His  death 
is  in  some  sense  the  centre  and  consummation 
of  His  work.  It  is  because  of  it  that  His  risen 
life  is  the  hope  which  it  is  to  sinful  men  ;  and  it 
needs  no  apology,  therefore,  if  one  who  thinks 
that  it  has  less  than  its  proper  place  in  preach- 
ing and  in  theology  endeavours  to  bring  out  as 
simply  as  possible  its  place  and  meaning  in 
the  New  Testament.  If  our  religion  is  to  be 
Christian  in  any  sense  of  the  term  which  history 
will  justify,  it  can  never  afford  to  ignore  what,  to 
say  the  least  of  it,  is  the  primary  confession  of 
Christian  faith. 

The  starting-point  in  our  investigation  must 
be  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  Himself.  For 
this  we  shall  depend  in  the  first  instance  on  the 
synoptic  gospels.  Next  will  come  an  examina- 
tion of  primitive  Christian  teaching  as  it  bears 


10  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

on  our  subject.  For  this  we  can  only  make  use 
of  the  early  chapters  in  Acts,  and  with  a  reserve, 
which  will  be  explained  at  the  proper  place,  of 
the  first  epistle  of  Peter.  It  will  then  be 
necessary  to  go  into  greater  detail,  in  propor- 
tion as  we  have  more  material  at  command,  in 
regard  to  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul.  Of  all  New 
Testament  writers  he  is  the  one  who  has  most 
deliberately  and  continually  reflected  on  Christ's 
death  ;  if  there  is  a  conscious  theology  of  it  any- 
where it  is  with  him.  A  study  of  the  epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  and  of  the  Johannine  writings — 
Apocalypse,  Gospel,  and  Epistle — will  bring  the 
subject  proper  to  a  close  ;  but  I  shall  venture  to 
add,  in  a  concluding  chapter,  some  reflections  on 
the  importance  of  the  New  Testament  concep- 
tion of  Christ's  death  alike  to  the  evangelist  and 
the  theologlaiL 


IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  ii 


CHAPTER    I 


THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


/  All  the  gospels  describe  the  sufferings  and  death 
/    of  Christ  with  a  minuteness  which  has  no  parallel 
I    in  their  narratives  of  other  events  of  His  life,  and 
f     they  all,  to  a  certain  extent,  by  references  to  the 
fulfilment  of  Old  Testament  prophecy  or  other- 
wise, indicate   their  sense   of  its  meaning  and 
importance.     This,  however,  reveals  the  mind  of 
the  evangelists  rather  than  that   of  the  Lord. 
I  It  is  in   His  life,  rather  than  in  the  record  of 
/  His  death  itself,  that  we  must  look  for  indica- 
^    tions  of  His  mind.     But  here  we  are  at  once 
confronted  with  certain  preliminary  difficulties. 
Quite   apart   from    the    question   whether  it  is 
possible  at  all  to  know  what  Jesus  thought  or 
spoke   about   His   death — a   question   which   it 
is    taken   for    granted    is    to    be    answered    in 
the  affirmative — it   has   been   asserted,   largely^,^^ 
upon  general  grounds,  that   Jesus  cannot  have   j 
entered  on  His  ministry  with  the  thought  of  His  -' 
death  present  to   Him  ;   that  He  must,  on  the 
contrary,  have   begun    His  work   with   brilliant 


za  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

hopes  ot  success;  that  only  as  these  hopes 
gradually  but  irrevocably  faded  away  did  first 
the  possibility  and  then  the  certainty  of  a  tragic 
issue  dawn  upon  Him ;  that  it  thus  became 
necessary  for  Him  to  reconcile  Himself  to  the 
idea  of  a  violent  death,  and  that  in  various 
ways,  which  can  more  or  less  securely  be  traced 
in  the  gospels,  He  did  so ;  although,  as  the 
prayer  in  Gethsemane  shows,  there  seemed  a 
possibility  to  Him,  even  to  the  last,  that  a 
change  might  come,  and  the  will  of  the  Father 
be  done  in  some  less  tragic  fashion.  This  is 
what  is  meant  by  an  historical  as  opposed  to  a 
dogmatic  reading  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  a  dog- 
matic reading  being  one  which  holds  that  Jesus 
came  into  the  world  in  order  to  die;  and  it  is 
insisted  on  as  necessary  to  secure  for  that  life 
the  reality  of  a  genuine  human  experience.  To 
question  or  impeach  or  displace  this  interpreta- 
tion is  alleged  to  be  docetism ;  it  gives  us  a 
phantom  as  a  Saviour  instead  of  the  man  Christ 
Jesus. 
I  In  spite  of  its  plausibility,  I  venture  to  urge 
/  that  this  reading  of  the  gospels  requires  serious 
qualification.  It  is  almost  as  much  an  a  priori 
interpretation  of  the  history  of  Jesus,  as  if  it 
were  deduced  from  the  Nicene  creed.  It  is 
derived  from  the  word  'historical,'  in  the  sense 
which  that  word  would  bear  if  it  were  applied 
to  an  ordinary  human  life,  just  as  abstractly  as 


HISTORY  AND  DOGMA  AGAIN  13 

another  reading  of  the  facts  might  be  derived 
from  the  words  '  6fioova-io<i  tc3  irarpL*  If  any 
one  wrote  a  life  of  Jesus,  in  which  everything 
was  subordinated  to  the  idea  that  Jesus  was 
'of  one  substance  with  the  Father/ it  would  no 
doubt  be  described  as  dogmatic,  but  it  is  quite 
as  possible  to  be  'dogmatic'  in  history  as  in 
theology.  It  is  a  dogma,  and  an  unreasoned 
dogma  besides,  that  because  the  life  of  Jesus 
is  historical,  it  neither  admits  nor  requires  for 
its  interpretation  any  idea  or  formula  that  can- 
not be  used  in  the  interpretation  of  the  common 
life  of  man.  The  Christian  religion  rests  on 
the  fact  that  there  is  not  only  an  identity  but  I, 
a  difference  between  His  life  and  ours ;  and  we  \ 
cannot  allow  the  difference  {and  with  it  the  \ 
Christian  religion)  to  be  abolished  a  priori  by  | 
a  '  dogmatic '  use  of  the  term  '  historical.'  We 
must  turn  to  our  historical  documents — the 
gospels — and  when  we  do,  there  is  much  to 
give  us  pause. 

All  the  gospels,  we  remark  in  the  first  place,  1 
begin  with  an  account  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus.  \ 
Whatever  may  be  doubtful  about  this  it  cannot    \ 
be  doubtful  that  it  was  the  occasion  of  a  great 
spiritual  experience   to   Jesus.      Ideas,   as    Dr. 
Johnson  says,  must  be  given  through  something ;       \ 
and  Jesus,  we  must  believe,  gave  His  disciples       *. 
an  idea  of  what  His  experience  at  baptism  was        | 

in  the  narratives  which   we   now   read   in   the       i 

/ 


/ 


14  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

gospels.  The  sum  of  that  experience  is  often 
put  by  saying  that  He  came  then  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  His  Sonship.  But  the  manner  in 
which  Jesus  Himself  puts  it  is  much  more  re- 
vealing. '  A  voice  came  from  heaven,  Thou  art 
My  Son,  the  Beloved,  in  Thee  I  am  well  pleased.' 
A  voice  from  heaven  does  not  mean  a  voice 
from  the  clouds,  but  a  voice  from  God ;  and 
it  is  important  to  notice  that  the  voice  from 
God  speaks  in  familiar  Old  Testament  words. 
It  does  not  come  unmediated,  but  mediated 
through  psalm  and  prophecy.  It  is  through 
the  absorption  of  Old  Testament  Scripture  that 
Jesus  comes  to  the  consciousness  of  what  He 
is ;  and  the  Scriptures  which  He  uses  to  convey 
His  experience  to  the  disciples  are  the  second 
Psalm,  and  the  forty-second  chapter  of  Isaiah. 
The  first  words  of  the  heavenly  voice  are  from 
the  Psalm,  the  next  from  the  prophet.  Nothing 
could  be  more  suggestive  than  this.  The 
Messianic  consciousness  in  Jesus  from  the  very 
beginning  was  one  with  the  consciousness  of 
the  Servant  of  the  Lord.  The  King,  to  whom 
Jehovah  says.  Thou  art  My  Son,  this  day  have 
I  begotten  Thee  (Psalm  ii.  7)*  is  at  the  same 


*  In  Luke  iii.  22,  Codtx  Bt%a  gives  the  heavenly  voice  in  this 
form.  Probably  Jesvt  told  the  stories  of  His  baptism  and  tempta- 
tion often,  giving  more  or  less  fully,  with  brief  allusions  to  Old 
Testament  words  or  fuller  citation  of  them,  such  hints  of  His 
experience  as  His  hearers  could  appreciate.     Certainly  there  could 


THE  BAPTISM  OF  JESUS  15 

time  (in  the  mind  of  Jesus)  that  mysterious 
Servant  of  Jehovah — 'my  beloved,  in  whom  1 
am  well  pleased ' — whose  tragic  yet  glorious 
destiny  is  adumbrated  in  the  second  Isaiah 
(xlii.  I  ff.).  It  is  not  necessary  to  inquire  how 
Jesus  could  combine  beforehand  two  lines  of 
anticipation  which  at  the  first  glance  seem  so 
inconsistent  with  each  other;  the  point  is,  that 
on  the  evidence  before  us,  which  seems  to  the 
writer  as  indisputable  as  anything  in  the  gospels, 
He  did  combine  them,  and  therefore  cannot  have 
started  on  His  ministry  with  the  cloudless  hopes 
which  are  sometimes  ascribed  to  Him.  How- 
ever * unhistorical'  it  might  seem  on  general 
grounds,  on  the  ground  of  the  evidence  which 
is  here  available  we  must  hold  that  from  the 
very  beginning  of  His  public  work  the  sense 
of  something  tragic  in  His  destiny — something 
which  in  form  might  only  become  definite  with 
time  but  in  substance  was  sure — was  present  to 
the  mind  of  Jesus.  When  it  did  emerge  in 
definite  form  it  brought  necessities  and  appeals 
along  with  it  which  were  not  there  from  the 
beginning ;  it  brought  demands  for  definite 
action,   for    assuming    a    definite    attitude,    for 

be  no  truer  index  to  His  life  than  a  combination  of  Fs.  iL  7 
with  Isaiah  xlii.  i  ff. — the  Son  of  God  as  King,  and  the  Servant 
of  the  Lord ;  and  this  combination,  if  we  go  upon  the  evidence 
and  not  upon  any  dogmatic  conception  of  what  is  or  is  not 
historical,  dates  from  the  high  hour  in  which  Jesus  entered  on  His 
public  work,  and  is  not  an  afterbirth  of  disappointing  experiencefc 


i6  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

giving  more  or  less  explicit  instruction ;  but  it 
did  not  bring  a  monstrous  and  unanticipated 
disappointment  to  which  Jesus  had  to  reconcile 
Himself  as  best  He  could.  It  was  not  a  brutal 
dhnenti  to  all  His  hopes.  It  had  a  necessary 
relation  to  His  consciousness  from  the  be- 
ginning, just  as  surely  as  His  consciousness 
from  the  beginning  had  a  necessary  relation  to 
the  prophetic  conception  of  the  Servant  of  the 
Lord. 

This  is  confirmed  if  we  look  from  the  baptism 
to  that  which  in  all  the  gospels  is  closely  con- 
nected with  it,  and  is  of  equal  importance  as 
illustrating  our  Lord's  conception  of  Himself 
and  His  work — the  temptation.  Nothing  can 
be  more  gratuitousthan  to  ascribe  this  wonder- 
ful narrative  to  the  '  productive  activity  *  of  the 
Church,  and  to  allege  that  the  temptations  which 
it  records  are  those  which  Jesus  encountered  dur- 
ing His  career,  and  that  they  are  antedated  for^ 
effect,  or  for  catechetical  convenience.  Psycho- 
logically, the  connection  of  the  temptations  with 
the  baptism  is  strikingly  true,  and  two  of  the, 
three  are  connected  even  formally  with  the  divine 
voice,  Thou  art  My  Son  (Matt.  iii.  7 ;  iv.  3,  6). 
The  natural  supposition  is  that  Jesus  spoke  often 
to  His  disciples  of  a  terrible  spiritual  experience 
which  followed  the  sublime  experience  of  the 
baptism — sometimes  without  detail,  as  in  Mark, 
who  mentions  only  a  prolonged  conflict  with 


THE  TEMPTATIONS  OF  THE  CHRIST      17 

Satan,  during  which  Jesus  was  sustained  by  the 
ministry  of  angels ;    sometimes,  as  in  Matthew 
and  Luke,  with  details  which  gave  insight  into 
the  nature  of  the  conflict.      It  does  not  matter 
that  the  temptations  which  are  here  described] 
actually  assailed  Jesus  at  later  stages  in  His  life^ 
Of  course  they  did.     They  are  the  temptations 
of  the  Christ,  and  they  not  only  assailed  Him' 
at  particular  moments,  some  of  which  we  can 
still    identify  (Matt.    xvi.    22    f. ;    John   vi.    15),/" 
they  must  in  some  way  have  haunted  Him  in- 
cessantly.    But  they  were  present  to  His  mind  | 
from  the  outset  of  His  career ;   that  is  the  very  \ 
meaning  of  the  temptation  story,  standing  where 
it  stands.     The  Christ  sees  the  two^gaths  that 
lie  before  Him,  and  He  chooses  at  the  outset, 
in  spiritual  conflict,  that  which  He  knows  will 
set    Him    in    irreconcilable   antagonism    to  the 
hopes  and  expectations  of  those  to  whom   He 
is   to  appeal.      A  soul  which  sees  its  vocation 
shadowed  out  in  the  Servant  of  the  Lord,  which 
is  driven  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness  to  face 
the  dreadful  alternatives  raised  by  that  vocation, 
and  which  takes  the  side  which  Jesus  took  in 
conflict  with  the  enemy,  does  not  enter  on  its 
life-work  with  any  superficial  illusions :    it  has  t 
looked  Satan  and  all  he  can  do  in  the  face;  it  I 
is   prepared   for   conflict ;    it    may   shrink   from 
death,  when  death  confronts  it  in  the  path  of 
its  vocation,  as   hideous  and  unnatural,  but  it 

B 


i8  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

cannot  be  startled  by  it  as  by  an  unthought  of, 
unfamiliar  thing.  The  possibility,  at  least,  of 
a  tragic  issue  to  His  work — when  we  remember 
the  Servant  of  the  Lord,  far  more  than  the 
possibility — belongs  to  the  consciousness  of  Jesus 
from  the  first.  Not  that  His  ultimate  triumph 
is  compromised,  but  He  knows  before  He  begins 
that  it  will  not  be  attained  by  any  primrose  path. 
If  there  was  a  period  in  His  life  during  which 
He  had  other  thoughts,  it  is  antecedent  to  that 
at  which  we  have  any  knowledge  of  Him. 

These  considerations  justify  us  in  emphasising, 
in  relation  to  our  subject,  not  merely  the  fact 
of  Jesus'  baptism,  but  its  meaning.  It  was  a 
baptism  of  repentance  with  a  view  to  remission 
of  sins,  and  there  is  undoubtedly  something 
paradoxical,  at  a  first  glance,  in  the  idea  of  Jesus 
submitting  to  such  a  baptism.  Neither  here  nor 
elsewhere  in  the  gospel  does  He  betray  any  con- 
sciousness of  sin.  The  opinion  of  a  recent  writer 
on  the  life  of  Jesus,^  who  ascribes  to  the  frag- 
ments of  the  gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews 
an  authority  equal,  and  at  this  point  superior,  to 
that  of  the  canonical  gospels,  is  not  likely  to 
find  many  supporters.  Jerome  tells  us  that  in 
this  gospel,  which  in  his  day  was  still  used  by 
the  Nazarenes,  and  could  be  seen  in  the  library 
at  Caesarea,  the  narrative  ran :  '  Behold  the 
mother  of  the  Lord  and  His  brethren  said  to 

^  O.  Holtzounn. 


THE  BAPTISM  INTERPRETED  19 

Him :  John  Baptist  is  baptizing  with  a  view  to 
remission  of  sins:  let  us  go  and  be  baptized 
by  him.  But  He  said  to  them  :  '  What  sin  have 
I  done  that  I  should  go  and  be  baptized  by  him  ? 
unless,  indeed,  this  very  word  I  have  spoken  is 
ignorantia,'  i.e.  a  sin  of  ignorance  or  inadvertence 
(cf.  a'^voTjfiay  Heb.  ix.  7,  and  njJB'  in  Old  Testa- 
ment).^ We  should  have  to  suppose  in  this  case 
that  Jesus  went  up  to  Jordan  half  reluctantly, 
His  first  thought  being  that  a  baptism  like  John's 
could  mean  nothing  to  Him,  His  next  that 
possibly  this  proud  thought,  or  the  utterance  of 
it,  indicated  that  He  might  have  something  to 
repent  of  after  all,  and  more  perhaps  than  He 
knew.  This  mingling  of  what  might  not  unfairly 
be  called  petulance  with  a  sudden  access  of  mis- 
giving, as  of  one  who  was  too  sure  of  himself 
and  yet  not  quite  sure,  is  as  unlike  as  anything 
could  be  to  the  simplicity  and  truth  of  Jesus;* 
and  surely  it  needs  no  proof  that  it  is  another 
mood  than  this  to  which  the  heavens  are  opened, 
and  on  which  divine  assurance  and  divine  strength 
are  bestowed.     We  must  abide  by  the  canonical 

*  Hier.  Contra  Pelag.,  3,  2.  Nestle,  Novi  Testamenti  Graeci 
SuppUmeiitum  (77,  81),  quotes  in  the  same  sense  from  Cyprian 
De  Rebaptismate :  '  Conficius  liber  qui  inscribit\ir  Pauli predicatio 
in  quo  libro  contra  omnes  scripluras  et  de  peccato  proprio  con- 
fitentem  invenies  Christum,  qui  solus  omnino  nihil  deliquit  et  ad 
accipiendum  Joannis  baptisma  paene  inviium  a  matre  sua  esse 
compulsum.* 

'  Soltau,  Unsert  Evangelitn,  p.  58:  'Der  Zusatx  ist  nicbt 
mehr  naiv,  sondem  ganz  kasuiitisch.' 


20  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

narratives  as  consistent  in  themselves,  and  con- 
sistent with  the  New  Testament  as  a  whole. 
What  we  see  there  is  Jesus,  who,  according  to  all 
apostolic  testimony,  and  according  to  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  Baptist  himself  in  Matt.  iii.  14, 
knew  no  sin,  submitting  to  a  baptism  which  is 
defined  as  a  baptism  of  repentance.  It  would 
not  have  been  astonishing  if  Jesus  had  come 
from  Galilee  to  baptize  along  with  John,  if  He 
had  taken  His  stand  by  John's  side  confronting 
the  people ;  the  astonishing  thing  is  that  being 
\  what  He  was  He  came  to  be  baptized,  and  took 
His  stand  side  by  side  with  the  people.  He 
identified  Himself  with  them.  As  far  as  the 
baptism  could  express  it,  He  made  all  that  was 
theirs  His.  It  is  as  though  He  had  looked  on 
them  under  the  oppression  of  their  sin,  and  said : 
On  Me  let  all  that  burden,  all  that  responsibility 
^descend.  The  key  to  the  act  is  to  be  found  in 
'the  great  passage  in  Isaiah  liii.  in  which  the 
vocation  of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  present  to  our  Lord's  mind 
at  the  moment,  is  most  amply  unfolded.  The 
deepest  word  in  that  chapter.  He  was  ^numbered 
with  the  transjjressQiSi  is  expressly  applied  to 
our  Lord  by  Himself  at  a  later  period  (Luke  xxii. 
37)  ;  and  however  mysterious  that  word  may  be 
when  we  try  to  define  it  by  relation  to  the  pro- 
vidence and  redemption  of  God — however  appal- 
ling it  may  seem  to  render  it  as  St.  Paul  does 
Him  who  knew  no  sin,  God  made  to  be  sin  for 


THE  BAPTISM  INTERPRETED  ax 

us — here  in  the  baptism  we  see  not  the  word  but- 
the  thing:  Jesus  numbering  Himself  with  tht     I 
transgressors f  submitting    to    be  baptized  with    I 
their  baptism,  identifying  Himself  with  them  in 
their  relation  to  God  as  sinners,  making  all  their 
responsibilities  His  own.     It  was  '  a  great  act  of 
loving  communion  with  our  misery,'  and  in  that 
hour,  in  the  will  and  act  of  Jesus,  the  work  of 
atonement  was  begun.     It  was  no  accident  that* 
now,  and  not  at  some  other  hour,  the  Father's* 
voice  declared  Him  the  beloved  Son,  the  chosehl 
One  in  whom   His  soul  delighted.      For  in  sa^ 
identifying  Himself  with  sinful  men,  in  so  making 
their  last  and  most  dreadful  responsibilities  His 
own,  Jesus  approved  Himself  the  true  Son  of  the 
Father,  the  true  Servant  and  Representative  of 
Him  whose  name  from  of  old  is  Redeemer.^     It 


»  In  Tfu  Expositor  for  May  1902,  Mr.  Garvie  has  a  notabia 
article  on  the  baptism  of  Jesus — 'The  Vocation  Accepted' — in\ 
which  he  connects  Matt.  iii.  15  ('thus  it  becomes  us  to  fulfil  all  V 
righteousness')  with  Isa.  liii.   II.     'The  righteous  servant  shall    \ 
justify  many  because  He  shall  bear  their  iniquities.     It  is  in  His       < 
vicarious  consciousness  and   the  sacrifice  which  this  would  ulti-       ! 
mately  involve  that  Jesus  fulfilled  all  righteousness.     There  is  a 
higher  righteousness  than  being  justified  by  one's  own  works,  a 
higher    even  than  depending  on   God's  forgiveness ;    and  that 
belongs  to  Him  who  undertakes  by  His  own  loving  sacrifice  for 
sinners  to  secure  God's  forgiveness  on  their  behalf.'     In  combina- 
tion with  the  argument  in  the  text,  this  seems  to  me  to  make  the 
essential  meaning  of  our  Lord's  baptism  indubitable.     To  ascribe 
Matt.  iii.  14  f.  to  the  productive  activity  of  the  Church,  stimulated 
by  dogmatic  motives,  is  perfectly  gratuitous.     A  dogmatic  motive 
would  have  produced  something  more  obviously  and  unequivocally 
dogmatic  than  a  phrase  ('to  fulfil  all  righteousness')  which  haa     / 
baffled  most  readers  by  its  excessive  vagueness. 


12  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

is  impossible  to  have  this  in  mind,  and  to  re- 
member the  career  which  the  fifty-third  chapter 
of  Isaiah  sets  before  the  Servant  of  the  Lord, 
without  feeling  that  from  the  moment  He  entered 
on  His  ministry  our  Lord's  thoughts  of  the  future 
must  have  been  more  in  keeping  with  the  reality 
than  those  which  are  sometimes  ascribed  to  Him 
as  alone  consistent  with  a  truly  human  career. 
His  career  was  truly  His  own  as  well  as  truly 
human,  and  the  shadow  of  the  world's  sin  lay  on 
it  from  the  first.^ 

Starting  from  this  point,  we  may  now  go  on 
to  examine  the  facts  as  they  arc  put  before  us  in 
the  gospels. 

It  is  only,  indeed,  after  the  great  day  of 
Caesarea  Philippi,  on  which  Jesus  accepts  from 
the  lips  of  His  disciples  the  confession  of 
Messiahship,  that  He  begins  expressly  to  teach 
the  necessity  of  His  death.  But  there  are  in- 
dications earlier  than  this  that  it  was  not  alien 
to  his  thoughts,  as  indeed  there  was  much  to 
prompt  the  thought  of  it.  There  was  the  ex- 
perience of  ancient  prophets,  to  which  he  refers 
from  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  at  the  opening  of 
his  ministry  (Matt.  v.  10-12),  to  the  great  denun- 
ciation of  the  Pharisees  at  its  close  (Matt,  xxiii. 
37).   There  was  the  fate  of  John  the  Baptist,  which, 

»  Compare  Kahler,  Zur  Lehre  von  dir  VersShnung,  179  :  '  Di« 
Taufe  im  Jordan  ninimt  jene  Taufe  voraMS,  der  er  mit  Baogea 
tntgegenblickt,  die  leUte,  schwerite  Vcrsucbung.' 


THE  BRIDEGROOM  TAKEN  AWAY       13 

though  the  precise  date  of  it  is  uncertain,  was  felt 
by  Jesus  to  be  parallel  to  His  own  (Mark  ix.  12, 
13).  There  was  the  sense  underlying  all  His 
early  success,  to  speak  of  it  in  such  language,  of 
an  irreconcilable  antipathy  in  His  adversaries,  of 
a  temper  which  would  incur  the  guilt  of  eternal 
sin  rather  than  acknowledge  His  claims  (Mark 
iii.  20-30) ;  there  was  the  consciousness,  going 
back,  if  we  can  trust  the  evangelic  narrative  at 
all,  to  very  early  days,  that  the  most  opposite 
parties  were  combining  to  destroy  Him  (Mark  iii. 
6).  And  there  is  one  pathetic  word  in  which  the 
sense  of  the  contrast  between  the  present  and  the 
future  comes  out  with  moving  power.  'Can  the\ 
children  of  the  bride-chamber  fast  while  the  \ 
bridegroom  is  with  them?  As  long  as  they  ^ 
have  the  bridegroom  with  them  they  cannot  fast. 
But  days  will  come  when  the  bridegroom  shall  i 
be  taken  away  from  them,  and  then  shall  they  / 
fast  in  that  day '(Mark  ii.  19  f.).  The  force  of 
this  exquisite  word  has  been  evaded  in  two  ways, 
(i.)  Hollmann^  has  argued  that  v.  20,  in  which 
the  taking  away  of  the  bridegroom  is  spoken  of, 
is  not  really  a  word  of  Jesus,  but  due  to  the  pro- 
ductive activity  of  the  Church.  It  is  irrelevant  in 
the  circumstances,  and  it  is  only  made  possible 
by  the  parable  of  Jesus  being  treated  as  an 
allegory.  All  that  is  apposite  to  the  occasion  is 
the  first  clause :  Can  the  children  of  the  bride- 

*  Dit  Bedtutung  det  Todts /esu,  p.  16  £ 


24  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

chamber  fast  while  the  bridegroom  is  with  them  ? 
If  this  proves  anything,  it  is  only  that  Hollmann 
would  not  have  said,  Days  will  come  when  the 
bridegroom  shall  be  taken  away  from  them  ;  and 
that  is  not  only  irrelevant,  but  needs  no  proof. 
(2.)  It  has  been  argued  that  the  words  do  not 
necessarily  refer  to  a  violent  or  premature  or 
unnatural  death,  but  merely  to  the  parting  which 
is  inevitable  in  the  case  of  all  human  relations, 
however  joyful  they  may  be,  and  which  perhaps 
suggests  itself  the  more  readily  the  more  joyful 
they  are.^  But  there  is  nothing  elsewhere  in  the 
words  of  Jesus  so  sentimental  and  otiose  as  this. 
He  does  not  aim  at  cheap  pathetic  effects,  like 
the  modern  romance  writers,  who  studiously  paint 
the  brightness  and  gaiety  of  life  against  the 
omnipresent  black  background  of  death.  The 
taking  away  of  the  bridegroom  from  the  bridal 
party  is  not  the  universal  experience  of  man, 
applied  to  an  individual  case  ;  it  is  something 
startling,  tragic,  like  sudden  storm  in  a  summer 
sky ;  and  it  is  as  such  that  it  is  present  to  the 
mind  of  Jesus  as  a  figure  of  His  own  death.  Even 
in  the  Galilean  springtime,  when  His  fortune 
seems  to  rise  like  the  rising  tide,  there  is  this  sad 
presentiment  at  His  heart,  and  once  at  least  He 
suffers  it  to  break  through. 

It  is  not  possible,  for  critical  reasons,  to  insist 

>  Cf.  Haupt,  DU  eschatol.  AussagBHjtsu,  p.  108 ;  Holtznuuin. 
N»Mt,  Theologie,  i.  p.  287. 


THE  SIGN  OF  JONAH  25 

in  the  same  way  on  the  saying  about  being  three 
days  and  three  nights  in  the  heart  of  the  earth, 
as  Jonah  was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the 
whale's  belly  (Matthew  xii.  40) ;  though,  if  this 
saying  is  merely  a  misinterpretation  of  the  sign 
of  Jonah  by  the  evangelist  or  the  Church — a  mis- 
interpretation of  comparatively  late  date — it  does 
seem  strange  that  such  explicit  emphasis  should 
be  laid  on  the  three  days  and  three  nights,  a 
period  quite  inconsistent  with  the  actual  occur- 
rences when  Jesus  died  and  rose  again.  It  seems 
possible,  to  say  the  least,  that  (as  Barth  argues*) 
Jesus  actually  spoke  the  words,  using  the  three 
days  and  three  nights  merely  to  indicate  a  brief 
time  (cf.  Hos.  vi.  2,  Luke  xiii.  32),  and  laying 
stress,  not  on  the  chronology,  but  on  the  great 
reversal  of  affairs  in  which  one  who  had  appar- 
ently perished  appears  anew,  and  only  then  begins 
to  work  with  effect.  But  even  if  Jesus  did  make 
an  allusion  of  this  sort-  to  the  issue  of  His  life,  it 
does  not  carry  us  any  way  into  the  understanding 
of  His  death.  It  only  suggests  that  it  is  not  a 
final  defeat,  but  has  the  true  victory  of  His  cause 
beyond  it.  What  He  came  to  do  will  be  effectively 
done,  not  before  He  dies,  but  after  He  has  come 
again  through  death.  And  this  is  the  only  sign 
which  His  enemies  can  have.* 

*  Die  Hauptprobhnie  des  Lebens/esu,  p,  183. 

•  Cf.  Rev.  C.  F.  Bumey  in  Contentio  Veritatis,  p.  202.  '  If, 
as  is  probable,  Jonah  represents  the  nation  of  Israel  emerging  as 
though  by  a  miracle  from  the  Exile  in  order  to  carry  out  its  mis- 


•  »6  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

But  leaving  these  allusive  references  to  His 
death,  let  us  proceed  to  those  in  which  it  is  the 
express  subject  of  our  Lord's  teaching. 

All  the  synoptics  introduce  it,  in  this  sense,  at 

the  same  point  (Mark  viii.  31,  Matthew  xvi.  21, 

Luke  ix.  22).     Matthew  lays  a  peculiar  emphasis 

on  the  date,  using  it  to  mark  the  division  of  his 

I  gospel  into  two  great  parts.      '  From  that  time 

?  Jesus  began,*  he  says  in  iv.  17,  'to  preach  and  to 

i   say :  Repent,  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at 

V  hand.*      'From  that  time/  he  says  in  xvi.  21, 

f  'Jesus    began    to    show    to    His    disciples   that 

■He  must   go   up   to  Jerusalem   and  be  killed.' 

A  comparison  of  the  evangelists  justifies  us  in 

saying  broadly  that  a  new  epoch  in  our  Lord's 

ministry  had  now  begun.      His  audience  is  not 

so  much  the  multitudes    as   the    twelve ;    His 

method  is  not  so  much  preaching  as  teaching; 

His  subject  is  not  so    much   the   Kingdom   as 

Himself,  and  in  particular  His  death.     All  the 

evangelists   mention  three   occasions  on  which 

He  made  deliberate  and  earnest  efforts  to  initiate 

the  disciples  into  His  thoughts  (Mark  viii.  31, 

ix.  31,  X.  32,  with  parallels  in  Matthew  and  Luke). 

Mark,  especially,  whose  narrative  is  fundamental^ 

•ion  to  the  world  at  large,  it  may  be  noticed  that  the  idea  of  the 
restoration  from  the  exile  as  a  resurrection  is  elsewhere  current  ia 
the  prophetic  writings  (Hos.  vi.,  Ezek.  xxxvii.)  and  that  it  is  thus 
hi{;hly  fitting  that  the  allegory  of  the  death  and  resurrection  oi 
the  nation  should  be  also  the  allegory  of  the  death  and  resuireo- 
tioo  of  the  natioD's  true  Representative.' 


THE  THREE  GREAT  LESSONS  tj 

lays  stress  on  the  continued  and  repeated  attempts 
He  made  to  familiarise  them  with  what  was  draw- 
ing near  (notice  the  imperfects  iBiBaaKev,  eXeyev 
in  ix.  31).  There  is  no  reason  whatever  to  doubt 
this  general  representation.  It  is  mere  wanton- 
ness to  eliminate  from  the  narrative  one  or  two  of 
the  three  passages  on  the  ground  that  they  are 
but  duplicates  or  triplicates  of  the  same  thing. 
In  Mark,  especially,  they  are  distinctly  charac- 
terised by  the  varying  attitude  of  the  disciples. 
Further,  in  the  first  we  have  the  presumptuous 
protest  of  Peter,  which  guarantees  the  historicity 
of  the  whole,  if  anything  could.  In  the  second 
the  disciples  are  silent.  They  could  not  make 
him  out  (^yvoovv  to  pyfia),  and  with  the  re- 
membrance of  the  overwhelming  rebuke  which 
Peter  had  drawn  down  on  himself,  they  were 
afraid  to  put  any  question  to  Him  (ix.  32).  The 
third  is  attached  to  that  never-to-be-forgotten 
incident  in  which,  as  they  were  on  the  way  to 
Jerusalem,  Jesus  took  the  lead  in  some  startling 
manner,  so  that  they  followed  in  amazement  and  , 
fear.  If  anything  in  the  gospels  has  the  stamp  of 
real  and  live  recollection  upon  it,  it  is  this.  It  is 
necessary  to  insist  on  this  repeated  instruction  of 
the  disciples  by  Jesus  as  a  fact,  quite  apart  from 
what  He  was  able  to  teach  or  they  to  learn.  It  is 
often  said  that  the  death  of  Christ  has  a  place  in 
the  epistles  out  of  all  proportion  to  that  which  it 
has  in  the  gospels.     This  is  hardly  the  fact,  even 


38  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

if  the  space  were  to  be  estimated  merely  by  the 
number  of  words  devoted  to  it  in  the  gospels  and 
epistles  respectively ;  but  it  is  still  less  the  fact 
when  we  remember  that  that  which,  according 
to  the  gospels  themselves,  characterised  the  last 
months  of  our  Lord's  life  was  a  deliberate  and 
thrice- repeated  attempt  to  teach  His  disciples 
something  about  His  death. 

The  critical  questions  which  have  been  raised 
as  to  the  contents  of  these  passages  need  not  here 
detain  us.  It  has  been  suggested  that  they  must 
have  become  more  detailed  in  the  telling — that 
unconsciously  and  involuntarily  the  Church  put 
into  the  lips  of  the  Lord  words  which  were  only 
supplied  to  its  own  mind  by  its  knowledge  of 
what  actually  took  place — that  the  references  to 
mocking,  scourging,  spitting,  in  particular,  could 
not  have  been  so  explicit — above  all,  that  the 
resurrection  on  the  third  day  must,  if  spoken  of 
at  all,  have  been  veiled  in  some  figurative  form 
which  baffled  the  disciples  at  the  moment.  It 
has  been  suggested,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it 
may  have  been  the  idea  of  a  resurrection  on  the 
third  day,  and  not  on  the  familiar  great  day  at 
the  end  of  all  things,  which  put  them  out.  It 
may  not  be  possible,  and  it  is  certainly  not  neces- 
sary, to  say  beforehand  that  there  is  nothing  in 
any  of  these  suggestions.  But  one  may  hold 
sincerely,  and  with  good  grounds,  that  there  is 
very  little  in  them,  and  that  even  that  little  is 


INEVITABLE  OR  INDISPENSABLE?        89 

persuasive  rather  for  dogmatic  than  for  historical 
reasons.  Surely  we  cannot  imagine  Jesus  iterating 
and  reiterating  (as  we  know  He  did),  with  the 
most  earnest  desire  to  impress  and  instruct  His 
followers,  such  vague,  elusive,  impalpable  hints 
of  what  lay  before  Him  as  some  critics  would 
put  in  the  place  of  what  they  regard,  for  extra- 
historical  reasons,  as  impossibly  definite  predic- 
tions. Jesus  must  have  had  something  entirely 
definite  and  say  able  to  say,  when  He  tried  so 
persistently  to  get  it  apprehended.  He  did  not 
live  in  cloudland ;  what  He  spoke  of  was  the 
sternest  of  realities  ;  and  for  whatever  reason 
His  disciples  failed  to  undertand  Him,  it  cannot 
have  been  that  He  talked  to  them  incessantly 
and  importunately  in  shadowy  riddles  :  the  thing 
could  not  be  done.  As  far,  however,  as  our 
present  purpose  is  concerned,  it  is  not  affected 
by  any  reasonable  opinion  we  may  come  to  on 
the  critical  questions  here  in  view.  The  one/ 
point  in  which  all  the  narratives  agree  is  that 
Jesus  taught  that  He  must  go  up  to  Jerusalem 
and  die ;  and  the  one  question  it  is  of  importance 
to  answer  is.  What  is  meant  by  this  must  (Set)  ? 

There  are  obviously  two  meanings  which  it 
might  have.  It  might  signify  that  His  death 
was  inevitable;  the  must  being  one  of  outward 
constraint.  No  doubt,  in  this  sense  it  was  true 
that  He  must  die.  The  hostile  forces  which 
were  arrayed  against  Him  were  irreconcilable, 


3©  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

and  were  only  waiting  their  time.  Sooner  or 
later  it  would  come,  and  they  would  crush  Him 
without  remorse.  But  it  might  also  signify  that 
His  death  was  indispensable,  the  must  being  one 
of  inward  constraint.  It  might  signify  that  death 
was  something  He  was  bound  to  accept  and  con- 
template if  the  work  He  came  to  do  was  to  be 
done,  if  the  vocation  with  which  he  was  called 
was  to  be  fulfilled.  These  two  senses,  of  course, 
are  not  incompatible;  but  there  may  be  a 
question  as  to  their  relation  to  each  other. 
Most  frequently  the  second  is  made  to  depend 
upon  the  first.  Jesus,  we  are  told,  came  to  see 
that  His  death  was  inevitable,  such  were  the 
forces  arrayed  against  Him ;  but  being  unable, 
as  the  well-beloved  Son  of  the  Father,  merely 
to  submit  to  the  inevitable,  merely  to  encounter 
death  as  a  blind  fate.  He  reconciled  Himself  to 
it  by  interpreting  it  as  indispensable,  as  some- 
thing which  properly  entered-  into  His  work 
and  contributed  to  its  success.  It  became  not 
a  thing  to  endure,  but  a  thing  to  do.  The 
passion  was  converted  into  the  sublimest  of 
actions.  We  do  not  need  to  say  that  this 
reasoning  has  nothing  in  it ;  but  it  is  too 
abstract,  and  the  relation  in  which  the  two 
necessities  are  put  to  one  another  does  not 
answer  to  the  presentation  of  the  facts  in  the 
gospels.  The  '  inward  necess  ty  which  Jesus 
recognised   for   His  death  was  not  simply  the 


THE  SUFFERING  MESSIAH  31 

moral  solution  which  He  had  discovered  for 
the  fatal  situation  in  which  He  found  Himself. 
An  inward  necessity  is  identical  with  the  will 
of  God,  and  the  will  of  God  for  Jesus  is  ex- 
pressed, not  primarily  in  outward  conditions, 
but  in  that  Scripture  which  is  for  Him  the 
word  of  God.  We  have  seen  already  that  from 
the  very  beginning  our  Lord's  sense  of  His  own 
vocation  and  destiny  was  essentially  related  to 
that  of  the  servant  of  the  Lord  in  the  Book  of 
Isaiah,  and  it  is  there  that  the  ultimate  source 
of  the  Bel  is  to  be  found.  The  divine  necessity 
for  a  career  of  suffering  and  death  is  primary ; 
it  belongs,  in  however  vague  and  undefined  a 
form,  to  our  Lord's  consciousness  of  what  He  is 
and  what  He  is  called  to  do ;  it  is  not  deduced 
from  the  malignant  necessities  by  which  He  is 
encompassed ;  it  rises  up  within  Him,  in  divine 
power,  to  encounter  these  outward  necessities 
and  subdue  them. 

This  connection  of  ideas  is  confirmed  when 
we  notice  that  what  Jesus  began  to  teach  His 
disciples  is  the  doctrine  of  a  suifering  Messiah. 
As  soon  as  they  have  confessed  Him  to  be  the  \ 
Christ,  He  begins  to  give  them  this  lesson.  The  ' 
necessity  of  His  death,  in  other  words,  is  not  a 
dreary,  incomprehensible  somewhat  that  He  is 
compelled  to  reckon  with  by  untoward  circum- 
stances ;  for  Him  it  is  given,  so  to  speak,  with 
the  very  conception  of  His  person  and  His  work. 


[ 


3a  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

When  He  unfolds  Messiahship  it  contains  death. 
This  was  the  first  and  last  thing  He  taught  about 
it,  the  first  and  last  thing  He  wished  His  disciples 
to  learn.  In  Matthew  xvi.  21,  Westcott  and 
Hort  read,  '  From  that  time  began  Jesus  Christ 
to  show  to  His  disciples  that  He  must  go  to 
Jerusalem  and  suffer  many  things/  while  Mark 
and  Luke,  in  the  corresponding  passage,  speak  of 
\the  Son  of  Man.  The  oflficial  expressions,  or,  to 
use  a  less  objectionable  term,  the  names  which 
denote  the  vocation  of  Jesus,  'the  Christ'  and 
*  the  Son  of  Man,'  show  that  in  this  lesson  He  is 
speaking  out  of  the  sense  of  His  vocation,  and 
not  merely  out  of  a  view  of  His  historical  circum- 
stances. The  necessity  to  suffer  and  die,  which 
was  involved  in  His  vocation,  and  the  dim  sense 
of  which  belonged  to  His  very  being,  so  that 
without  it  He  would  not  have  been  what  He  was, 
was  now  beginning  to  take  definite  shape  in  His 
mind.  As  events  made  plain  the  forces  with 
which  He  had  to  deal.  He  could  see  more  clearly 
how  the  necessity  would  work  itself  out.  He 
could  go  beyond  that  early  word  about  the  taking 
away  of  the  bridegroom,  and  speak  of  Jerusalem, 
of  the  elders  and  chief  priests  and  scribes,  of 
rejection,  of  crucifixion.  And  this  consideration 
justifies  us  in  believing  that  these  details  in 
the  evangelic  narrative  are  historical.  But  the 
manner  in  which  the  necessity  did  work  itself 
out,  and  the  greater  or  less  detail  with  which. 


THE  SERVANT  OF  THE  LORD  33 

from  a  greater  or  less  distance,  Jesus  could 
anticipate  its  course,  do  not  affect  in  the  least 
the  character  of  that  necessity  itself.  It  is  the 
necessity  involved  in  the  divine  vocation  of  one 
in  whom  the  Old  Testament  prophecy  of  the 
Servant  of  the  Lord  is  to  be  fulfilled. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  in  none  of  the  three 
summary  references  which  the  evangelists  make 
to  our  Lord's  teaching  on  His  death  do  they  say 
anything  of  explicitly  theological  import.  They 
tell  us  (i)  that  it  was  necessary — in  the  sense,  we 
now  assume,  which  has  just  been  explained  ;  (2) 
that  it  should  be  attended  by  such  and  such 
circumstances  of  pain  and  ignominy  ;  and  (3) 
that  it  should  be  speedily  followed  by  His  resur- 
rection. The  repeated  assurances  that  His  dis- 
ciples could  not  understand  Him  must  surely 
refer  to  the  meaning  and  necessity  which  He 
wished  them  to  see  in  His  death.  They  cannot 
but  have  understood  His  words  about  dying  and 
rising,  unless,  as  has  been  suggested  already,  the 
date  of  the  rising  puzzled  them.  All  that  re- 
mains is  to  suppose  that  the  incomprehensible 
element  in  the  new  teaching  of  Jesus  was  the 
truths  He  wished  to  convey  to  them  about  the 
necessity,  the  meaning,  the  purpose,  the  power, 
of  His  death.  But  if  we  observe  the  unanimity 
with  which  every  part  of  the  early  Church  taught 
that  Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the 
Scriptures — if,  as  will  be  shown  below,  we  see 
C 


34  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

how  in  Acts,  in  Peter,  in  Hebrews,  in  John, 
in  Paul,  passages  referring  to  the  Servant  of 
the  Lord,  and  especially  to  His  bearing  sin, 
and  being  numbered  with  the  transgressors, 
are  applied  to  Christ — it  becomes  very  difficult 
to  believe  that  this  consent,  in  what  might 
seem  by  no  means  obvious,  can  have  any  other 
source  than  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Himself. 
Hollmann,  indeed,  makes  a  remarkable  attempt 
to  prove  that  Jesus  never  applied  the  fifty-third 
chapter  of  Isaiah  to  Himself  except  in  Luke 
xxii.  37,  and  that  there,  when  He  says  (with 
singular  emphasis),  *  that  which  is  written  must 
be  fulfilled  in  Me, — the  word :  and  He  was  num- 
bered with  tfansgressors,'  He  is  not  thinking  of 
His  death  at  all  as  having  expiatory  value  in 
relation  to  sin :  He  is  only  thinking  of  the  dreary 
fact  that  His  countrymen  are  going  to  treat  Him 
as  a  criminal  instead  of  as  the  Holy  One  of  God.* 
But  there  is  surely  no  reason  why  the  most 
superficial  sense  of  profound  words,  a  sense,  too, 
which  evacuates  them  of  all  their  original  asso- 
ciations, should  be  the  only  one  allowed  to  Jesus. 

*  Di»  BetUtitung  dti  TocUi  Jesu^  69  ft 
Ritschl{iV/^A//".  u.  Versbhnuvgy  ii.  67)  had  already  described 
as  '  an  unproved  conjecture '  the  idea  that  Isaiah  liii.  had  any 
decisive  influence  upon  the  mind  of  Jesus.  He  points  out  that 
the  two  express  words  of  our  Lord  about  His  death  (Matt.  xx.  28, 
xxvL  38)  have  no  connection  with  that  chapter,  and  he  discredits 
Luke  xxii.  37  (which  Hollmann  accepts)  as  part  of  a  passage 
(Luke  xxii.  24-38)  which  be  regards  as  *  eine  Anschwemmung  von 
unsicberen  Eriiinerungen. ' 


THE  SERVANT  OF  THE  LORD  35 

If  there  is  any  truth  at  all  in  the  connection  we 
have  asserted  between  His  own  consciousness  of 
what  He  was  and  the  Old  Testament  conception 
of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord,  it  is  surely  im- 
probable that  He  applied  to  Himself  the  most 
wonderful  expression  in  Isaiah  liii.  in  a  shallow 
verbal  fashion,  and  put  from  Him  the  great 
meanings  of  which  the  chapter  is  full,  and  which 
the  New  Testament  writers  embrace  with  one 
accord.  On  the  strength  of  that  quotation,  and 
of  the  consent  of  the  New  Testament  as  a  whole, 
which  has  no  basis  but  in  Jesus,  we  are  entitled 
to  argue  from  the  Sel  of  the  evangelists — in  other 
words,  from  the  divine  necessity  Jesus  saw  in 
His  death — that  what  he  sought  in  those  repeated 
lessons  to  induce  His  disciples  to  do  was  to  re- 
cognise in  the  Messiah  the  person  who  should 
fulfil  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  liii.  The  ideal  in 
their  minds  was  something  far  other  than  this, 
r  and  there  is  np  dead  lift  so  heavy  as  that  which- 
V-is  regjiiced- to  change  an  ideal.  We  do  not 
wonder  that  at  the  moment  it  was  too  much  for 
Him  and  for  them.  We  do  not  wonder  that  at 
the  moment  they  could  not  turn,  one  is  tempted 
to  say  bodily  round,  so  as  to  see  and  understand 
what  He  was  talking  about.  And  just  as  little 
do  we  wonder  that  when  the  meaning  of  His 
words  broke  on  them  later,  it  was  with  that  over- 
whelming power  which  made  the  thing  that  had 
once  baffled  them  the  sum  and  substance  of  their 


36  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

gospel.  The  centre  of  gravity  in  their  world 
changed,  and  their  whole  being  swung  round 
into  equilibrium  in  a  new  position.  Their  in- 
I  spiration  came  from  what  had  once  alarmed, 
I  grieved,  discomfited  them.  The  word  they 
preached  was  the  very  thing  which  had  once 
made  them  afraid  to  speak. 

But  we  are  not  limited,  in  investigating  our 
Lord's  teaching  on  His  death,  to  inferences  more 
or  less  secure.  There  are  at  least  two  great 
words  in  the  gospels  which  expressly  refer  to  it 
— the  one  contained  in  His  answer  to  James  and 
John  when  they  asked  the  places  at  His  right 
hand  and  His  left  in  His  kingdom,  the  other 
spoken  at  the  Supper.  We  now  proceed  to 
consider  these. 

Part  of  the  difficulty  we  always  have  in  inter- 
preting Scripture  is  the  want  of  context ;  we  do 
not  know  what  were  the  ideas  in  the  minds  of 
the  original  speakers  or  hearers  to  which  the 
words  that  have  been  preserved  for  us  were  im- 
mediately related.  This  difficulty  has  perhaps 
been  needlessly  aggravated,  especially  in  the 
first  of  the  passages  with  which  we  are  con- 
cerned. Yet  the  context  here,  even  as  we  have 
it,  is  particularly  suggestive.  Jesus  and  His 
disciples  are  on  the  way  to  Jerusalem,  when 
Jesus  takes  the  start  of  them,  apparently  under 
some  overpowering  impulse,  and  they  follow  in 
amazement  and  fear  (Mark  x.  32).      He  takes 


THE  BAPTISM  AND  THE  CUP  37 

them  aside  once  more,  and  makes  the  third  of 
those  deliberate  attempts  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made,  to  familiarise  them  with  His 
death.  '  Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem  ;  and  the 
Son  of  Man  shall  be  delivered  to  the  chief 
priests  and  the  scribes  ;  and  they  shall  condemn 
Him  to  death,  and  shall  deliver  Him  unto  the 
Gentiles:  and  they  shall  mock  Him,  and  shall 
spit  upon  Him  and  scourge  Him,  and  shall 
kill  Him ;  and  after  three  days  He  shall  rise 
again '(Mark  x.  33  f.).  It  was  while  Jesus  was 
in  the  grip  of  such  thoughts — setting  His  face 
steadfastly,  with  a  rapt  and  solemn  passion, 
to  go  to  Jerusalem — that  James  and  John  came 
to  Him  with  their  ambitious  request.  How  was 
He  to  speak  to  them  so  that  they  might  under- 
stand Him?  As  Bengel  finely  says,  He  was  \ 
dwelling  in  His  passion  ;  He  was  to  have  others  \ 
on  His  right  hand  and  on  His  left  before  that ; 
and  their  minds  were  in  another  world.  How 
was  He  to  bridge  the  gulf  between  their  thoughts 
and  His  own  ?  '  Are  ye  able,'  He  asks, '  to  drink 
the  cup  which  I  drink,  or  to  be  baptized  with  the 
baptism  with  which  I  am  baptized  ? '  The  cup 
and  the  baptism  are  poetic  terms  in  which  the 
destiny  which  awaits  Him  is  veiled  and  trans- 
figured. They  are  religious  terms,  in  which  that 
destiny  is  represented,  in  all  its  awfulness,  as 
something  involved  in  the  will  of  God,  and 
involving  in   itself  a  consecration.     The  cup  is 


38  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

put  into  His  hand  by  the  Father,  and  if  the 
baptism  is  a  flood  of  suffering  in  which  He  is  over- 
whelmed, it  has  through  the  very  name  which 
He  uses  to  describe  it  the  character  of  a  religious 
act  assigned  to  it ;  He  goes  to  be  baptized  with 
it,  as  He  takes  the  cup  which  the  Father  gives 
Him  to  drink.  That  the  reference  in  both  figures 
is  to  His  death,  and  to  His  death  in  that  tragic 
aspect  which  has  just  been  described  in  the  im- 
mediately preceding  verses,  is  not  open  to  doubt. 
And  just  as  little  is  it  open  to  doubt  that  in  the 
next  scene  in  the  gospel — that  in  which  Jesus 
speaks  to  the  disciples  who  were  indignant  with 
James  and  John  for  trying  to  steal  a  march  upon 
them — a  reference  to  His  death  is  so  natural 
as  to  be  inevitable.  True  greatness,  he  tells 
them,  does  not  mean  dominance,  but  service. 
That  is  the  law  for  all,  even  for  the  highest.  It 
is  by  supremacy  in  service  that  the  King  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God  wins  his  place.  '  Even  the  Son 
of  Man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to 
minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many.' 
It  is  not  inept  to  insist  on  the  sequence  and 
connection  of  ideas  throughout  this  passage, 
because  when  it  is  really  understood  it  puts  the 
last  words — '  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many' 
— beyond  assault.  It  is  often  asserted  that  these 
words  are  an  indication  of  Pauline  influence  in  the 
second  evangelist.  Let  us  hope  that  one  may  be 
forgiven  if  he  says  frankly  that  this  is  an  asser- 


A  RANSOM  FOR  MANY  39 

tion  which  he  cannot  understand.    The  words'^ 
are  perfectly  in  place.    They  are   in  line  with  ;, 
everything  that   precedes.     They  are  words  in   \ 
the  only  key,  of  the  only  fulness,  which  answers  / 
to  our    Lord's   absorption   at   the   time   in   the  ' 
thought  of  His  death.     A  theological  aversipn  toS 
them  may  be  conceived,  but  otherwise  there  is  \ 
no  reason  whatever  to  call   them    in  question. 
There  is  no  critical  evidence  against  them,  and 
their  psychological  truth  is  indubitable.     So  far 
from  saying  that  Jesus  could  not  have  uttered 
anything    so    definitely   theological,   we  should 
rather  deny  that  the  words  are  theological,  in  the 
technical  question-begging  sense  of  the  term,  yet 
maintain  that  in  an  hour  of  intense  preoccupa- 
tion with  His  death  no  other  words  would  have 
been  adequate  to  express  the  whole  heart  and 
mind  of  our  Lord. 

From  this  point  of  view,  we  must  notice  a 
common  evasion  of  their  import  even  by  some 
who  do  not  question  that  Jesus  spoke  them.  It 
is  pointed  out,  for  instance,  that  the  death  is 
here  set  in  line  with  the  life  of  our  Lord.  He 
came  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister, 
and  (in  particular,  and  at  last,  as  his  crowning 
service)  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many.  His 
death  is  the  consummation  of  His  life,  and  the 
consummation  of  His  ministry ;  but  it  has  no 
other  end  than  His  life,  and  we  must  not 
seek  another  interpretation  for  it     An  extreme 


40  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

example  of  this  is  seen  in  Hollmann,*  whose 
exegesis  of  the  passage  brings  out  the  following 
result.  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  serve  men, 
and  especially  to  serve  them  by  awakening  them 
to  that  repentance  which  is  the  condition  of 
entering  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  inheriting  its 
blessings.  So  far,  His  ministry  has  not  been 
without  success  ;  some  have  already  repented,  and 
entered  into  the  Kingdom.  But  even  where  He 
has  not  proved  successful,  it  is  not  yet  necessary 
to  despair :  many  will  be  won  to  repentance  by 
His  death  who  resistecf  all  the  appeal  of  His  life. 
It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point  out  that  the 
connection  of  ideas  here  is  not  in  the  least  that 
which  belongs  to  the  words  of  Jesus.  Hollmann 
actually  speaks  of  a  Glaubensurtheil^  a  conviction 
which  Jesus  held  by  faith,  that  even  His  death 
(tragic  and  disconcerting  as  we  must  suppose  it 
to  be)  will,  by  the  grace  of  the  Father,  neverthe- 
less contribute  to  the  success  of  His  work,  and 
win  many  whom  He  has  yet  failed  to  reach. 
But  this  completely  leaves  out  the  one  thing  to 
which  the  words  of  Jesus  give  prominence — the 
fact,  namely,  that  the  Son  of  Man  came  ex- 
pressly to  do  a  service  which  involved  the 
giving  of  His  life  a  ransom  for  many.  Holl- 
mann's  interpretation  means  that  Jesus  could 
by  faith  in  the  Father  reconcile  Himself  to  His 
death  as  something  which  would,   though  it  is 

'  DU  Bedeutung  <Us  Todesjesu,  99  ff. 


A  RANSOM  FOR  MANY  41 

not  clear  how,  contribute  to  the  carrying  out  of 
His  vocation — something  which,  in  spite  of  ap- 
pearances, would  not  prove  inconsistent  with  it ; 
but  what  the  words  in  the  gospel  mean  is  that 
the  death  of  Jesus,  or  the  giving  of  His  life  a 
ransom  for  many,  is  itself  the  very  soul  of  His 
vocation.  He  does  not  say  that  He  can  bear  to 
die,  because  His  death  will  win  many  to  repent- 
ance who  are  yet  impenitent,  but  that  the  object 
of  His  coming  was  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for 
many. 

The  same  consideration  discredits  an  inter- 
pretation like  Wendt's,^  which  finds  the  key  to 
the  passage  in  Matthew  xi.  29  f.  Wendt  lays 
all  the  stress  on  the  effect  to  be  produced  on 
human  character  by  realising  what  the  death  of 
Jesus  is.  If  men  would  only  put  on  the  yoke 
of  Jesus  and  learn  of  Him — if  they  would  drink 
of  His  cup  and  be  baptized  with  His  baptism — 
if,  as  St.  Paul  says,  they  would  be  conformed 
to  His  death,  their  souls  would  be  liberated  from 
the  restless  passions  of  pride  and  ambition  by 
which  James  and  John,  and  the  other  ten  not 
less  than  they,  were  tormented,  and  death  itself 
would  cease  to  be  a  terror  to  them.  However 
true  this  may  be,  one  cannot  look  at  the  text 
without  being  impressed  by  its  irrelevance  as 
an  interpretation.  There  is  nothing  in  it  to 
explain  the  introduction  of  Christ's  death  at  all, 

*  Lihrejesu,  ii.  509  S, 


4a  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

as  the  very  end  contemplated  in  His  coming. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  to  explain  either  Xvrpov, 
or  avrt,  or  ttoWmv,  or  Xvrpov  avrX  iroWoiv.  In 
spite  of  the  attention  it  has  attracted,  it  is  an 
ingenious  vagary  which  has  surely  merited 
oblivion. 

In  what  direction,  then,  are  we  to  seek  the 
meaning?  The  only  clue  is  that  which  is 
furnished  by  the  passages  in  which  our  Lord 
Himself  speaks  of  the  soul  and  of  the  possibility 
of  losing  or  ransoming  it.  Thus  in  Mark  viii. 
34  f ,  immediately  after  the  first  announcement  of 
His  death,  He  calls  the  multitude  to  Him  with 
His  disciples,  and  says  :  *  If  any  man  will  come 
after  Me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his 
cross  and  follow  Me.  For  whoso  will  save  his 
life  (V^t'X'?'^)  shall  lose  it:  but  whoso  shall  lose 
his  life  {"^vxnv)  for  my  sake  and  the  gospel's, 
shall  find  it.  For  what  does  it  profit  a  man 
to  gain  the  whole  world  and  forfeit  his  life 
{■^xrxnv)}  For  what  can  a  man  give  in  ex- 
change for  his  life  {avTaWayiia  t^9  '^vxV'i 
avTov)?*  It  is  clear  from  a  passage  like  this 
that  Jesus  was  familiar  with  the  idea  that 
the  yp-vxh  or  life  of  man,  in  the  higher  or  lower 
sense  of  the  term,  might  be  lost,  and  that  when 
it  was  lost  there  could  be  no  compensation  for 
it,  as  there  was  no  means  of  buying  it  back. 
It  is  in  the  circle  of  such  ideas  that  the  words 
about  giving  His  life  a  ransom  for  many  must 


A  RANSOM  FOR  MANY  43 

find  their  point  of  attachment,  and  it  is  not 
only  far  the  simplest  and  most  obvious  inter- 
pretation, but  far  the  most  profound  and  the 
most  consonant  with  the  New  Testament  as  a 
whole,  that  Jesus  in  this  passage  conceives  the 
lives  of  the  many  as  being  somehow  under 
forfeit,  and  teaches  that  the  very  object  with 
which  He  came  into  the  world  was  t6  lay  down 
His  own  life  as  a  ransom  price  that  those  to 
whom  these  forfeited  lives  belonged  might 
obtain  them  again.  This  was  the  supreme 
service  the  Son  of  Man  was  to  render  to  man- 
kind ;  it  demanded  the  supreme  sacrifice,  and 
was  the  path  to  supreme  greatness.  Anything 
short  of  this  is  in  the  circumstances  an  anti- 
climax ;  it  falls  far  beneath  the  passion  with 
which  our  Lord  condenses  into  a  single  phrase 
the  last  meaning  of  His  life  and  death. 

Nothing  has  been  gained  for  the  understand- 
ing of  this  passage  by  the  elaborate  investiga- 
tion of  the  Hebrew  or  Aramaic  equivalents  of 
XvTpov.  In  truth  it  does  not  matter  whether 
*iBb  or  f^*l3,  whether  nWa  or  l^no  or  purkana  is 
most  akin  to  it  in  the  language  which  Jesus 
spoke ;  if  hovvai  rrfv  "^Jrvxiju  avrov  \vrpov  avrX 
iroWwv  does  not  convey  His  idea,  it  will  certainly 
not  be  conveyed  by  any  of  the  precarious  equiva- 
lents for  this  Greek  expression  which  are  offered 
for  our  acceptance.  The  best  fruit  of  these 
attempts  to   get   behind    the   Greek   has   been 


44  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Ritschl's  reference  to  Psalm  xlix.  7  f.,  Job 
xxxiii.  23  f.,  as  passages  furnishing  a  real  clue 
to  the  mind  of  Christ.  In  both  of  these  the 
Hebrew  word  ">sb  occurs,  which  Ritschl  regards 
as  the  equivalent  of  Xvrpov,  and  in  both  also 
the  verb  ma  is  used,  with  which,  rather  than 

T  T  '  ' 

with  nab,  Hollmann  would  connect  the  word  of 
Jesus.  But  the  ideas  which  the  words  express 
are  inseparable :  the  "iDb  is  in  both  passages  that 
by  means  of  which,  or  at  the  cost  of  which, 
the  action  of  the  verb  nns  (to  deliver)  is 
accomplished.^  The  Psalm  makes  it  particu- 
larly plain.  What  no  man  can  do  for  his  brother 
— namely,  give  to  God  a  ransom  for  him  (^"1S3) 
so  that  he  may  still  live  always  and  not  see 
corruption  ;  what  no  man  can  do  for  his  brother, 
because  the  redemption  (J^*7?)  °^  their  soul  is 
precious,  and  must  be  let  alone  for  ever,  this 
the  Son  of  Man  claims  to  do  for  many,  and 
to  do  by  giving  His  life  a  ransom  for  them.  It 
seems  hardly  open  to  doubt  that  the  world  in 
which  our  Lord's  mind  moved  as  he  spoke  was 
that  of  the  writer  of  the  Psalm,  and  if  this  be 
so,  it  is  possible  to  find  in  it  confirmation  for 
the  meaning  just  assigned  to  His  words.  Dr. 
Driver  *  defines  iBb  as  *  properly  a  covering  (viz. 
of  an  offence),  hence  a  propitiatory  gift,  but  re- 

*  RittchI,  Rechtf.  u.   VenShnung,  ii.  69  £      Hollmann,  Pis 
Bidsutung  des  Todes/ent,  99  ff. 
'  In  Hottingt'  BiiU  Dictionary,  %.y.  Propitiation  (vol.  iv.  128). 


A  RANSOM  FOR  MANY  45 

stricted  by  usage  to  a  gift  offered  to  propitiate 
or  satisfy  the  avenger-of-blood,  and  so  the  satis- 
faction offered  for  a  life,  i.e.  a  ransom!  Without 
going  into  meaningless  questions  as  to  how  the 
ransom  was  fixed,  or  to  whom  it  was  paid,  it 
is  important  to  recognise  the  fact  that  our  Lord 
speaks  of  the  surrender  of  His  life  in  this  way. 
A  ransom  is  not  wanted  at  all  except  where 
life  has  been  forfeited,  and  the  meaning  of  the 
sentence  unambiguously  is  that  the  forfeited 
lives  of  many  are  liberated  by  the  surrender  of 
Christ's  life,  and  that  to  surrender  His  life  to  do 
them  this  incalculable  service  was  the  very  soul 
of  his  calling.  If  we  find  the  same  thought  in 
St.  Paul,  we  shall  not  say  that  the  evangelist 
has  Paulinised,  but  that  St.  Paul  has  sat  at  the 
feet  of  Jesus.  And  if  we  feel  that  such  a 
thought  carries  us  suddenly  out  of  our  depth — 
that  as  the  words  fall  on  our  minds  we  seem 
to  hear  the  plunge  of  the  lead  into  fathomless 
waters — ^we  shall  not  for  that  imagine  that  we 
have  lost  our  way.  By  these  things  men  live,  \ 
and  wholly  therein  is  the  life  of  our  spirit.  \ 
We  cast  ourselves  on  them,  because  they  outgo  I 
us ;  in  their  very  immensity,  we  are  assured  that  / 
God  is  in  them.^ 

*  Compare  Kahler,  Zur  Lekre  von  dtr  Versohnung,  166  :  •  We 
put  our  whole  faith  in  reconciliation  into  this  word,  and  have  a  right 
to  do  so.'  I  do  not  think  anything  whatever  is  gained  by  trying 
all  possible  permutations  and  combinations  of  the  words  in  the 
text,  and  deciding  whether  d,yrl  roXXwr  is  to  b«  construed  with 


46  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

One  almost  despairs  of  saying  anything  about 
the  Lord's  Supper  which  will  not  seem  invalid  to 
some  upon  critical  or  more  general  grounds.  Our 
main  interest  is  in  the  words  which  Jesus  spoke, 
and  in  the  light  which  these  words  throw  on 
His  own  conception  of  His  death.  Here  we  are 
confronted  at  once  by  the  paradoxical  view  of 
Spitta  that  in  what  actually  took  place  on  the 
occasion  there  was  no  reference  to  the  death 
of  Christ  at  all.  What  Jesus  did  in  the  upper 
room  (so  we  are  to  suppose)  was  to  anticipate 
with  His  disciples  the  Messianic  Supper  of  the 
world  to  come.  In  that  supper,  according  to 
Rabbinical  and  Apocalyptic  writers,  the  good  to 
be  enjoyed  is  the  Messiah  Himself,  and  it  is 
to  this  that  Jesus  refers  when  He  speaks  of 
the  bread  and  wine  as  His  own  body  and  blood. 
He  is  preoccupied  with  the  completion  of  His 
work,  with  the  blessed  prospect  of  the  time 
when  God  shall  have  brought  His  kingdom  to 

\iJTpop  or  with  Sovvai,  or  with  the  two  in  combination,  or  in  some 
other  ingenious  or  perverse  way.  It  is  a  sentence  which  leaves 
meaning  on  the  mind,  not  the  bits  into  which  it  can  be  broken. 
Ritschl  sumsAip  his  interpretation  thus :  '  Der  Sinn  des  Ausdrucks 
Jesu  ist  also  :  Ich  bin  gekommen  anstatt  derer,  welche  eine  Werth- 
gabe  als  Schutzmittel  gegen  das  Sterben  fiir  sich  oder  fUr  Andere 
an  Gott  VI  leisten  vergeblich  erstreben  wUrden,  dasselbe  durch  die 
Hingebung  meines  Lebens  im  Tode  an  Gott  tu  verwirklichen,  aber 
eben  nur  anstatt  derer,  welche  durch  Glauben  und  selbstverleug- 
nende  Nachfolge  meiner  Person  die  Bedingung  erfullen,  unter  der 
alletn  meine  Leistung  den  erwarteten  Schutz  fUr  sie  vermitteln 
kann.' — A",  m.  F.  ii.  86.  For  a  criticism  of  Ritschl's  views  on 
*>Db  and  *^B3  tee  the  last  paragraph  of  Driver's  article  on 
PnpitiatioH  referred  to  above. 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER  47 

victory,  and  when  from  Him.  the  Messiah  sent 
of  God,  the  powers  of  knowledge  and  of  eternal 
life  should  flow  unimpeded  into  the  disciples  as 
the  gift  of  the  meal  which  God  prepares  for 
those  who  are  faithful  to  Him.  The  representa- 
tion of  the  Supper  in  the  evangelists  is  quite 
different,  Spitta  admits  ;  but  the  form  it  there 
assumes  is  due  to  the  intervening  death  of  Jesus, 
which  compelled  the  disciples  to  give  His  words 
another  turn.  I  do  not  feel  it  necessary  to  con- 
test this  construction  of  what  took  place.  A 
conception  of  the  Supper  which  sets  aside  the 
whole  testimony  of  the  New  Testament  to  what 
it  meant,  which  ignores  its  association  with  the 
Passover,  the  explicit  references  in  every  account 
of  it  to  the  shedding  of  Jesus'  blood,  and  above 
all,  the  character  expressly  stamped  upon  it  in 
the  evangelists  as  a  meal  in  which  Jesus  knew 
that  He  was  sitting  with  the  Twelve  for  the 
last  time  and  was  preoccupied  with  the  idea  of 
His  parting  from  them,  does  not  demand  refuta- 
tion. Nor  is  it  entitled  to  forbid  our  asking — 
on  the  basis  of  the  narratives  in  our  hands — 
what  Jesus  said  and  did,  and  what  is  the  bear- 
ing of  this  on  the  interpretation  of  His  death.* 

There  is  at  least  a  general  consent  in  this,  that 
Jesus  took  bread,  and  when  He  had  broken  it,  or 

*  Spitta's  views  are  given  in  his  treatise  on  Die  urchristlichen 
Tradittonen  iiher  Ursprung  und  Sinn  des  Abendmahls  («»#r 
Gtschichte  u.  Litteratur  des  Urchristenthums). 


48  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

as  He  broke  it,  said,  This  is  My  body ;  that  He 
took  a  cup  with  wine  in  it,  or  a  cup  into  which 
He  poured  wine,  saying  as  He  did  so,  This  is 
My  blood,  which  is  poured  out  for  many.  This 
is  all  that  is  admitted,  e.g.  by  Hollmann,  and  it 
enables  him  to  give  the  same  interpretation  to 
the  supper  as  he  gives  to  the  word  about  the 
Xvrpov}  Christ's  death  is  in  question,  certainly, 
but  it  has  no  reference  to  those  who  are  sitting 
at  the  table,  and  who  are  members  of  the  King- 
dom of  God.  The  many  in  whose  interest  it 
takes  place — the  many  who  are  to  have  benefit 
by  it — are  the  same  as  the  many  for  whom  the 
ransom  is  to  be  given  ;  they  are  the  numbers,  as 
yet  impenitent,  who  will  be  won  to  penitence  by 
the  death  of  Jesus.  According  to  this  interpreta- 
tion, the  idea  of  a  supper  is  a  complete  mistake. 
The  persons  at  the  table  had  really  no  interest 
in  the  death  of  Christ ;  they  had  already  all  that 
God  could  give.  Hollmann,  therefore,  expunges 
from  Mark  as  a  liturgical  insertion,  intended  to 
adapt  the  narrative  to  ecclesiastical  custom,  the 
very  first  word  spoken  by  Jesus :  Take  (XaySere). 
In  propriety,  the  disciples  should  not  have  taken, 
as  His  death  meant  nothing  to  them.  He  quotes, 
with  approval,  a  remark  of  Schmiedel :  *  The 
most  significant  thing  is,  at  least  in  the  first 
instance,  the  breaking  of  the  bread  and  the  pour- 
ing out  of  the  wine.     The  distribution  of  these 

*  Dit  BttUutungdet  Todts/esu,  133  £ 


THE  LORD'S  SUPPER  49 

foods  to  be  partaken  of  attaches  itself  to  this  as 
a  second  thing.  So  far  as  the  main  matter  is 
concerned,  it  might  have  been  treated  as  super- 
fluous ;  but  as  they  were  sitting  at  table  any  how, 
it  was  natural.'  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  this 
sort  of  thing  is  written  seriously :  if  courtesy 
compels  us  to  acknowledge  that  it  is,  we  can 
only  draw  the  melancholy  conclusion  that  it  is 
possible  for  the  human  mind  to  be  serious  even 
when  it  has  completely  lost  contact  with  reality. 
The  primary  narrative  of  Mark  begins  by  saying 
plainly, '  He  took  bread,  and  when  He  had  given 
thanks  He  brake  it  and  gave  it  to  them  and  said, 
Take,  this  is  My  body.  Then  He  took  a  cup, 
and  when  He  had  given  thanks  He  gave  it  to 
them,  and  they  drank  of  it  every  one  (Traz/re?  last 
and  emphatic).  And  He  said  to  them,  This  is 
My  blood  of  the  covenant  shed  for  many.'  This 
is  not  qualified  by  any  other  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment authorities,  nor  by  the  practice  of  the 
Church  as  the  New  Testament  reveals  it ;  and  I 
submit  that  it  is  not  open  to  any  one  to  go  behind 
it,  and  to  tell  us  blankly  out  of  his  own  head  (for 
that  is  the  only  authority  left)  that  the  bearing 
of  what  took  place  was  really  quite  independent 
of  this  giving  and  taking,  eating  and  drinking ; 
and  that  while  the  death  of  Jesus  was  the  subject 
of  the  symbolical  actions  of  breaking  the  bread 
and  pouring  out  the  wine,  and  was  no  doubt  meant 
to  benefit  some  persons,  it  was  a  thing  in  which 

D 


so  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

those  who  were  present,  and  who  at  Jesus'  word 
ate  and  drank  the  symbols  of  it,  had  no  interest 
at  all.  Jesus  made  the  bread  and  wine  symbols 
of  His  death :  this  is  not  denied.  He  handed 
them  to  His  disciples,  pronouncing  as  He  did  so 
;    the  very  words  in  which  He  conferred  on  them 

I    this  symbolical  character  :  this  also  is  not  denied. 

/  But  when  He  did  so,  it  was  not  that  the  disciples 
might  take  them  in  this  character.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  was  only  because  they  were  at  their 

I     supper  any  how,  and  because  bread  and  wine  are 

I  naturally  eaten  and  drunk.  That  is  how  bread 
and  wine  are  disposed  of  in  this  world,  but  it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  story.  If  there  is  any- 
body in  the  world  who  finds  this  convincing, 

«    presumably  it  cannot  be  helped. 

But  it  is  not  only  necessary  to  insist  on  the  eat- 
ing and  drinking  of  the  bread  and  wine,  which  as 
broken  and  outpoured  symbolised  Christ's  death,, 
and  as  eaten  and  drunk  symbolised  the  interest 
of  the  disciples  in  that  death,  and  their  making 
it  somehow  their  own ;  it  is  necessary  to  insist 
on  what  was  further  said  by  Jesus.  All  the 
evangelists  in  their  narratives  introduce  the  word 
'covenant'  (Biad^Krj)  in  some  construction  or  other. 
Mark  has,  This  is  My  blood  of  the  covenant 
(xiv.  24).  Matthew,  according  to  some  authori- 
ties (including  that  combination  of  Latin  and 
Syriac  versions  to  which  critics  seem  inclined  to 
ascribe  a  higher  value  than  once  seemed  probable) 


COVENANT  BLOOD  51 

has,  This  is  My  blood  of  the  new  covenant  (xxvi 
28).  Luke  has  what  is  apparently  a  Pauline  form; 
This  cup  is  the  new  covenant  in  My  blood  (xxii. 
20).  For  long  it  was  an  admitted  point  among 
critics  that  this  was  an  indubitable  word  of  Jesus. 
Brandt,  whose  criticism  is  sceptical  enough,  holds 
that  the  only  historically  certain  words  in  the 
whole  story  are,  This  is  My  covenant  blood,  drink 
ye  all  of  it.  But  even  these  words  have  lately 
been  assailed  in  the  determined  effort  to  get 
behind  the  gospels.  Three  grounds  have  been 
assigned  for  questioning  them.^  The  first  is 
that  the  expression  to  alfid  /lov  t^9  Siad'^KT}^  is 
awkward  in  Greek  ;  the  second,  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  translate  it  into  Hebrew  or  Aramaic ;  and 
the  third,  that  the  conception  of  the  covenant 
owes  its  place  in  Christianity  to  St.  Paul.  Of 
these  reasons  the  last  obviously  begs  the  ques- 
tion. It  does  not  follow  that  because  St.  Paul 
makes  use  of  an  idea  he  originated  it.  There 
are  very  great  ideas,  indeed,  of  which  St.  Paul 
says,  I  delivered  unto  you  that  which  also  I 
received  (i  Corinthians  xv.  3  f )  :  why  should  not 
this  be  one  of  them  ?  Does  he  not  himself  declare 
that  it  is  one,  when  he  prefaces  his  account  of 
the  supper — including  in  it  the  idea  of  the  new 
covenant  in  the  blood  of  Jesus — with  the  words, 
I  received  of  the  Lord  that  which  also  I  delivered 
unto  you?  (i  Corinthians  xi.  23).    The  idea  of  a 

*  See  Preuschen's  ZeitscAri/t,  L  69  ft 


5a  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

new  covenant,  and  that  of  covenant  blood,  arc 
Old  Testament  ideas  ;  and  if  Jesus  was  conscious, 
nay,  if  it  was  the  very  essence  of  His  conscious- 
ness, that,  in  relation  both  to  law  and  prophecy, 
He  came  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil,  why  should 
not  He  Himself  have  spoken  the  creative  word  ? 
As  for  the  other  two  reasons,  that  '  My  blood  of 
the  covenant '  is  awkward  in  Greek,  and  that  there 
are  persons  who  cannot  translate  it  into  Hebrew, 
however  true  or  interesting  they  may  be,  they  are 
obviously  irrelevant.  It  may  be  awkward  in 
Greek  or  in  any  language  to  combine  in  one 
proposition  the  two  ideas,  this  is  My  blood,  and 
this  is  covenant  blood ;  but  however  awkward 
it  may  be,  since  they  really  are  ideas  which  the 
mind  can  grasp,  it  must  be  possible  to  do  it,  in 
Greek  or  in  any  language.  It  does  not,  therefore, 
seem  open  to  question,  on  any  serious  ground 
whatever,  that  Jesus  at  the  last  supper  spoke  of 
His  blood  as  covenant  blood.  Now,  what  does 
this  imply?  To  what  set  of  ideas  in  the  minds 
of  His  hearers,  to  what  Old  Testament  associa- 
tions does  it  attach  itself,  so  as  to  be  not  merely 
a  word,  but  an  element  in  a  living  mind  ?  We 
get  the  clue  to  the  answer  when  we  notice  the 
form  in  which  the  words  appear  in  Matthew, 
This  is  My  blood  of  the  new  covenant,  shed  for 
many  unto  remission  of  sins.  The  added  words 
here  may  be  no  more  than  an  interpretative  ex- 
pansion of  what  Jesus  said,  but  if  they  are  no 


COVENANT  BLOOD  53 

more  than  this  they  are  also  no  less.  They  arc 
an  interpretative  expansion  by  a  mind  in  a  posi- 
tion naturally  to  know  and  understand  what 
Jesus  meant. 

The  Old  Testament  twice  speaks  of  'covenant, 
in  the  sense  in  which  God  makes  a  covenant  with 
His  people.  There  is  the  covenant  made  with 
sacrifice  at  Sinai,  in  the  account  of  which  we  have 
the  phrase.  Behold  the  blood  of  the  covenant 
which  the  Lord  hath  made  with  you  upon  all 
these  conditions  (Exodus  xxiv.  8).  Here,  it  is 
sometimes  said,  is  the  original  of  the  words  found 
in  our  evangelists  ;  and  as  nothing  is  said  in 
Exodus  about  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  as  the 
sacrifices  mentioned  there  are  not  sin  or  guilt 
offerings,  but  burnt  offerings  and  peace  offerings, 
it  is  argued  that  the  insertion  in  Matthew  of  the 
clause  'for  forgiveness  of  sins'  is  a  mistake.^ 
The  inference  is  hasty.  Covenant  blood  is  sacri- 
ficial blood,  and  we  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  sacrificial  blood  universally,  and  not  only  in 
special  cases,  was  associated  with  propitiatory 
power.  'The  atoning  function  of  sacrifice,'  as 
Robertson  Smith  put  it,  speaking  of  primitive 
times,  'is  not  confined  to  a  particular  class  of 
oblation,  but    belongs   to   all   sacrifices.'*      Dr. 

*  Holtzmann,  Neut,  Theologie,  L  302,  says  :  '  The  figure  of 
covenant  blood,  which  alone  retains  its  validity,  points,  indeed,  to 
a  covenant  sacrifice,  but  not  necessarily  also  to  an  expiatory  sacri- 
fice, with  which  last  alone  have  been  combined  the  later  ideas  of 
exchange  and  substitution.'  *  Religion  0/ the  Semites,  219. 


54  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Driver  has  expressed  the  same  opinion  with 
regard  to  the  Levitical  legislation  in  which  the 
key  to  the  language  of  our  passage  must  be 
found.  Criticising  Ritschl's  explanation  of  sacri- 
fice and  its  effect,  he  says :  '  It  seems  better 
to  suppose  that  though  the  burnt-,  peace-,  and 
meat-offerings  were  not  offered  expressly^  like  the 
sin-  and  guilt-offerings,  for  the  forgiveness  of  sin, 
they  nevertheless  (in  so  far  as  Kipper  is  predicated 
of  them)  were  regarded  as  'covering,'  or  neutral- 
ising, the  offerer's  unworthiness  to  appear  before 
God,  and  so,  though  in  a  much  less  degree  than 
the  sin-  or  guilt-offering,  as  effecting  Kappdrd  in 
the  sense  ordinarily  attached  to  the  word,  viz. 
"propitiation."'^  Instead  of  saying  'in  a  much 
less  degree,'  I  should  prefer  to  say  '  with  a  less 
specific  reference  or  application,'  but  the  point  is 
not  material.  What  it  concerns  us  to  note  is 
that  the  New  Testament,  while  it  abstains  from 
interpreting  Christ's  death  by  any  special  pre- 
scriptions of  the  Levitical  law,  constantly  uses 
sacrificial  language  to  describe  that  death,  and  in 
doing  so  unequivocally  recognises  in  it  a  pro- 
pitiatory character — in  other  words,  a  reference 
to  sin  and  its  forgiveness.  But  there  is  some- 
thing further  to  be  said.  The  passage  in  Exodus 
is  not  the  only  one  in  the  Old  Testament  to 
which  reference  is  here  made.  In  the  31st 
chapter  of  Jeremiah  we  have  the  sublime  pro- 

^  Hulingi'  Dictionary  <{f  Iht  BibU,  i.t.  Propitiation,  p.  133. 


COVENANT  BLOOD  55 

phecy  of  a  new  covenant — a  new  covenant  which 
is  indeed  but  the  efficacious  renewal  of  the  old, 
for  there  is  but  one  God,  and  His  grace  is  one — 
a  new  covenant,  the  very  condition  and  founda- 
tion of  which  is  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  /They 
shall  all  know  Me  from  the  least  to  the  greatest, 
for  I  will  forgive  their  iniquities,  and  I  will 
remember  their  sins  no  more'  (Jeremiah  xxxi. 
34).  It  is  this  which  is  present  to  the  mind  of 
our  Lord  as  He  says  of  the  outpoured  wine,  This 
is  My  blood  of  the  covenant.  He  is  establishing, 
at  the  cost  of  His  life,  the  new  covenant,  the  new 
religious  relation  between  God  and  man,  which 
has  the  forgiveness  of  sins  as  its  fundamental 
blessing.  He  speaks  as  knowing  that  that 
blessing  can  only  become  ours  through  His 
death,  and  as  the  condition  upon  which  it 
depends  His  death  can  be  presented  as  a  pro- 
pitiatory sacrifice.  It  is  as  though  He  had 
pointed  to  the  prophecy  in  Jeremiah,  and  said. 
This  day  is  this  Scripture  fulfilled  before  your 
eyes.  He  had  already,  we  might  think,  attached 
to  Himself  all  that  is  greatest  in  the  ideals  and 
hopes  of  the  Old  Testament  —  the  Messianic 
sovereignty  of  the  2nd  and  of  the  iioth  Psalm, 
and  the  tragic  and  glorious  calling  of  the  Servant 
of  the  Lord ;  but  there  is  something  which 
transcends  both,  and  which  gives  the  sublimest 
expression  to  our  Lord's  consciousness  of  Him- 
self and  His  work,  when  He  says,  This  is  My  blood 


56  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

of  the  covenant.  It  is  a  word  which  gathers  up 
into  it  the  whole  promise  of  prophecy  and  the 
whole  testimony  of  the  apostles  ;  it  is  the  focus 
of  revelation,  in  which  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New  ^re  one.  The  power  that  is  in  it  is  the 
power  of  the  passion  in  which  the  Lamb  of  God 
bears  the  sin  of  the  world.  It  is  no  misappre- 
hension, therefore,  but  a  true  rendering  of  the 
mind  of  Christ,  when  Matthew  calls  the  covenant 
new,  and  defines  the  shedding  of  blood  by  refer- 
ence to  the  remission  of  sins. 

There  is  really  only  one  objection  which  can 
be  made,  and  it  is  made  unceasingly,  to  this 
interpretation  of  the  words  of  Jesus.  It  is  that 
it  is  inconsistent  with  what  is  elsewhere  His 
unmistakable  teaching.  The  very  burden  of  His 
message,  we  are  told,  is  that  God  forgives  uncon- 
ditionally, out  of  His  pure  fatherly  love.  This 
love  reaches  of  itself  de-per  far  than  sin,  and 
bestows  pardon  freely  and  joyfully  on  the  peni- 
tent. It  is  nothing  less  than  a  direct  contradic- 
tion of  this  gospil  of  the  free  love  of  God  when 
we  make  forgiveness  dependent  upon  a  sacrifi- 
cial, that  is  a  propitiatory,  virtue  in  the  death  of 
Christ.  It  misrepresents  God's  character,  and  in 
so  doing  destroys  the  gospel.  We  cannot,  it 
is  arguu'd,  on  the  strength  of  one  word,  and 
that  a  dubious  word,  run  counter  to  the  sense 
and  spirit  of  our  Lord's  teaching  as  a  whole. 
So,    in    substance,   a     large    school    of    critics 


ALLEGED  INCONSISTENCY  57 

and  theologians.     How  can  we  answer  such  a 
contention  ? 

As  for  the  alleged  dubiety  of  the  word,  we  have 
said  enough  already  ;  it  only  remains  to  deal  with 
its  alleged  inconsistency  with  the  rest  of  our 
Lord's  teaching.  This  is  usually  asserted  in  the 
most  unqualified  fashion,  but  if  we  look  back 
on  what  we  have  already  seen  to  be  our  Lord's 
conception  of  Himself  and  His  calling  from  the 
beginning,  we  may  well  question  it.  The  love 
of  God  is  no  doubt  unconditionally  free  to  Jesus, 
but  it  is  not  an  abstraction.  It  does  not  exist  in 
vacuo:  so  far  as  the  forgiveness  of  sins  is  con- 
cerned— and  it  is  with  the  love  of  God  in  this 
relation  that  we  have  to  do — it  exists  in  and  is 
represented  by  His  own  presence  in  the  world : 
His  presence  in  a  definite  character,  and  with  a 
definite  work  to  do,  which  can  only  be  done  at  a 
definite  cost.  The  freeness  of  God's  love  is  not 
contradicted  by  these  facts ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
is  these  facts  which  enable  us  to  have  any 
adequate  idea  of  what  that  love  really  is.  To 
say  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  God's  free  love 
to  make  the  forgiveness  of  sins  dependent  on  the 
death  of  Jesus,  is  exactly  the  same  (in  one  par- 
ticular relation)  as  to  say  (in  general)  that  it  is 
inconsistent  with  God's  free  love  that  entrance 
into  His  kingdom  and  participation  in  its  bless- 
ings should  only  be  possible  through  the  presence 
of  Jesus  in  the  world,  His  work  in  it,  and  the 


( 


58  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

attitude  which  men  assume  towards  Him.  Those 
who  accept  the  latter  should  not  deny  the  former. 
If  we  give  any  place  at  all  to  the  idea  of  media- 
tion, there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  reject  the 
idea  of  propitiation  :  for  propitiation  is  merely  a 
mode  of  mediation,  a  mode  of  it  no  doubt  which 
brings  home  to  us  acutely  what  we  owe  to  the 
Mediator,  and  makes  us  feel  that  though  forgive- 
ness is  free  to  us  it  does  not  cost  nothing  to  Him. 
Of  course,  if  we  choose  to  say  that  the  Son  has  no 
place  in  the  gospel  at  all,  but  only  the  Father, 
we  may  reject  the  great  word  about  covenant- 
blood,  or  rather  we  must  reject  it ;  if  He  has  no 
place  in  the  gospel  at  all,  we  have  no  obligations 
to  Him  ;  we  do  not  owe  Him  anything,  least  of 
all  are  we  indebted  to  His  death  for  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins.  But  there  is  something  in  such 
language  which  when  confronted  with  the  gospels 
can  only  strike  one  as  utterly  abstract,  uncon- 
vincing, and  unreal.  It  does  not  answer  to  the 
relation  of  sinful  souls  to  Jesus,  to  their  devotion, 
their  gratitude,  their  sense  of  undying  obligation. 
It  was  not  for  a  forgiveness  with  which  He  had  in 
the  last  resort  nothing  to  do  that  they  poured 
their  precious  ointment  on  His  head  and  wet 
His  feet  with  tears.  No ;  but  in  the  depths  of 
their  being  they  had  the  dim  sense  of  His  passion 
in  their  pardon,  and  were  conscious  of  an  obh'ga- 
tion  for  it  to  Him  which  they  could  never  repay. 
The  love  of  God,  I  repeat,  free  as  it  is  to  sinful 


PROPITIATION  A  MODE  OF  MEDIATION      59 

men,  unconditionally  free,  is  never  conceived  in 
the  New  Testament,  either  by  our  Lord  Himself 
or  by  any  of  His  followers,  as  an    abstraction. 
Where  the  forgiveness  of  sin  is  concerned,  it  is 
not  conceived  as  having  reality  or  as  taking  effect 
apart  from  Christ.     It  is  a  real  thing  to  us  as 
it  is  mediated  through  Him,  through  His  Pre- 
sence in  the  world,  and  ultimately  through  His 
death.     The  love  of  God  by  which  we  are  re- 
deemed from  sin  is  a  love  which  we  do  not  know 
except  as  it  comes  in  this  way  and  at  this  cost; 
consequently,  whatever  we  owe  as  sinners  to  the 
love   of  God,   we   owe   to   the   death   of  Jesus. 
It  is   no   more   a   contradiction   of    God's    free\ 
love   to   the   sinful,   when  we   say  that  Christ's  \ 
death  is  the  ground   of  forgiveness,  than  it  is    | 
a  contradiction   of   God's   fatherly  goodwill   to    | 
men   in   general,    when   we   admit  the  word  of    ! 
Jesus,  No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by 
Me.    In  both  cases  equally,  Christ  stands  between 
God  and  man  ;  in  both  cases  equally  it  is  at  cost 
to  Him  that  God  becomes  our  God.    Why  should 
we  be  loth  to  become  His  debtors?     The  Chris- 
tian faith  is  a  specific  form  of  dependence  on' 
God,  and  to  cavil  at  the  atonement  is  to  begin 
the  process  of  giving  it  away  in  bits.     It  is  to 
refuse  to  allow  it  to  be  conditioned  by  Christ  at 
the  central  and  vital  point,  the  point  at  which 
the  sinner  is  reconciled  to  God ;  and  if  we  can 
do   without   Christ  there,   we    can    do    without 


6o  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Him  altogether.  The  process  which  begins  with 
denying  that  we  owe  to  Him  and  to  His  death  the 
forgiveness  of  sins,  ends  by  denying  that  He  has 
any  proper  place  in  the  gospel  at  all.  It  is  not 
either  from  His  own  lips,  or  from  the  lips  of  any 
of  the  apostles,  that  we  so  learn  Christ 


IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  61 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  EARLIEST  CHRISTIAN   PREACHING 

I.  Thus  far  we  have  confined  ourselves  to  the 
words  of  Jesus.  The  divine  necessity  of  His 
death,  indicated  in  the  Old  Testament  and  form- 
ing the  basis  of  all  His  teaching  regarding  it,  is 
the  primary  truth;  the  nature  of  that  necessity 
begins  to  be  revealed  as  the  death  is  set  in 
relation  to  the  ransoming  of  many,  and  to  the 
institution  of  a  new  covenant — that  is,  a  new 
religion,  having  as  its  fundamental  blessing  the 
forgiveness  of  sins.  I  do  not  think  this  view  of 
our  Lord's  mind  as  to  His  own  death  can  be 
shaken  by  appealing  to  His  experience  in  the 
garden,  as  though  that  proved  that  to  the  last 
day  of  His  life  the  inevitableness  of  death  re- 
mained for  Him  an  open  question. 

The  divine  necessity  to  lay  down  His  life  for 
men,  which  we  have  been  led  to  regard  as  a 
fixed  point  in  His  mind,  did  not  preclude  such 
conflicts  as  are  described  in  the  last  pages  of 
the  gospel ;  rather  was  it  the  condition  of  our 
Lord's  victory  in  them.     At  a  distance,  it  was 


63  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

possible  to  think  of  death  in  its  heroic  and  ideal 
aspects  only,  as  the  fulfilment  of  a  divine  calling, 
an  infinite  service  rendered  in  love  to  man;  but 
as  the  fatal  hour  approached,  its  realistic  and 
repellent  aspects  predominated  over  everything; 
it  stood  out  before  the  mind  and  imagination 
of  Jesus — we  might  almost  say  it  obtruded  itself 
upon  His  senses — as  a  scene  and  an  experience 
of  treachery,  desertion,  hate,  mockery,  injustice, 
anguish,  shame.  It  is  not  hard  to  conceive  that 
in  these  circumstances  Jesus  should  have  prayed 
as  He  did  in  the  garden :  O  My  Father,  if  it  be 
possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  Me,  even  though 
the  unmoved  conviction  of  His  soul  was  that  He 
had  come  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many. 
It  is  one  thing  to  have  the  consciousness  of  so 
high  a  calling,  another  to  maintain  and  give 
effect  to  it  under  conditions  from  which  all  that 
is  ideal  and  divine  seems  to  have  withdrawn.  It 
is  one  thing  not  to  count  one's  life  dear,  or  to 
make  much  of  it,  in  comparison  with  great  ends 
which  are  to  be  attained  by  laying  it  down ;  it 
is  another  to  lay  it  down,  encompassed  not  by 
the  gratitude  and  adoration  of  those  for  whom 
the  sacrifice  is  made,  but  by  mocking  and  spit- 
ting and  scorn.  This  was  what  Jesus  did,  and 
He  attained  to  it  through  the  agony  in  the 
garden.  The  agony  does  not  represent  a  doubt 
as  to  His  calling,  but  the  victorious  assertion  of 
His  calling  against  the  dreadful  temptation  to 


GETHSEMANE  AND  CALVARY  63 

renounce  it  which  came  in  the  hour  and  with 
the  power  of  darkness.  Not  that  I  should 
venture  to  say,  as  is  sometimes  said,  that  the 
realisation,  as  they  approached,  of  the  sensible 
and  moral  horrors  of  the  death  He  was  to  die 
was  all  that  wrung  from  Jesus  that  last  appeal 
to  the  Father,  all  that  made  His  soul  exceeding 
sorrowful  even  unto  death,  and  put  Him  in 
agonia — that  is,  in  deadly  fear:^  this  does  not 
answer  to  what  we  know  of  the  courage  of 
martyrs.  Though  one  shrinks  from  analysing 
the  cry  of  the  heart  to  God  in  its  anguish,  it  is 
difficult  to  avoid  the  impression  that  both  here 
and  in  the  experience  of  forsaking  on  the  cross, 
we  are  in  contact  with  something  out  of  pro- 
portion to  all  that  men  could  do  to  Jesus,  some- 
thing that  seems  to  call  for  connection,  if  we 
would  understand  it,  with  realities  more  mys- 
terious and  profound.  Language  like  Calvin's,' 
who  says  plainly  that  Jesus  endured  in  His  soul 
the  dreadful  torments  of  a  condemned  and  lost 
man,  may  well  be  repellent  to  us ;  there  is  some- 
thing unrealisable  and  even  impious  in  such 
words.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  there  was 
nothing  true,  nothing  in  contact  with  reality, 
in  the  state  of  mind  which  inspired  them.*    Not 

*  Se«  Field,  Notei  on  tJu  New  Ititamtnt,  p.  77,  where  decisive 
proof  of  this  is  given;  and  Armitage  Robinson,  Cosptl  according  to 
PeUTf  pp.  84,  87  (dYwvtdw).  »  Jnstitutto,  H.  xvi.  10. 

•  Calvin  has,  in  point  of  fact,  many  more  adequate  utterances 
on  this  subject:    'Invisibile  illud  et  incomprehensibile  judicium 


64  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

with  any  logical  hardness,  not  as  carrying  out 
aggressively  to  its  issue  any  theological  theory, 
but  sensible  of  the  thick  darkness  in  which, 
nevertheless  (we  are  sure),  God  is,  may  we  not 
urge  that  these  experiences  of  deadly  fear  and 
of  desertion  are  of  one  piece  with  the  fact  that 
in  His  death  and  in  the  agony  in  the  garden 
through  which  He  accepted  that  death  as  the  cup 
which  the  Father  gave  Him  to  drink,  Jesus  was 
taking  upon  Him  the  burden  of  the  world's  sin, 
consenting  to  be,  and  actually  being,  numbered 
with  the  transgressors?  They  cannot  but  have 
some  meaning,  and  it  must  be  part  of  the  great 
meaning  which  makes  the  Cross  of  Christ  the 
gospel  for  sinful  men.  No  doubt  there  are 
those  who  reject  this  meaning  altogether;  it  is 
dogmatico-religious,  not  historico-religious,  and 
no  more  is  needed  to  condemn  it.  But  a  dog- 
matico-religious interpretation  of  Christ's  death 
— that  is,  an  interpretation  which  finds  in  it  an 
eternal  and  divine  meaning,  laden  with  gospel — 
is  so  far  from  being  self-evidently  wrong,  that  it 
is  imperatively  required  by  the  influence  which 
that  death  has  had  in  the  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  Such  an  interpretation  carries  out, 
through  the  experiences  of  His  death,  thoughts 
as  to  its  significance  which   we  owe  to  Jesus 

quod  coram  Deo  sustinnit ' ;  '  neque  Umen  innuimus  Deum  fuisM 
unquam  illi  vel  adveriarium  vel  iratum '  i  '  illic  personam  nostram 
gerebat ' ;  and  especially  the  following :  '  Atqui  haec  nostra 
•apieniia  eat  probe  sentlr*  quant  i  constiterit  Dei  fiUo  nostra  aalua.' 


GETHSEMANE  AND  CALVARY  65 

Himself,  and  connects  these  thoughts  and  ex- 
periences with  the  subsequent  testimony  of  the 
apostles.  In  other  words,  to  read  the  accounts 
of  Gethsemane  and  Calvary  in  this  sense  is  to 
read  them  in  line  at  once  with  the  words  of 
Jesus  and  with  the  words  of  those  who  were  first 
taught  by  His  spirit ;  it  is  to  secure  at  once  the 
unity  of  the  gospels  with  themselves,  and  their 
unity,  in  the  main  truth  which  it  teaches,  with 
the  rest  of  the  New  Testament.  To  call  such 
an  interpretation  dogmatico-religious  as  opposed 
to  historico-religious  either  lins  no  meaning,  or 
has  a  meaning  which  would  deny  to  the  Person 
and  Work  of  Jesus  any  essential  place  in  the 
Christian  religion.  But  if  the  death  of  Jesus  has 
eternal  significance — if  it  has  a  meaning  which 
has  salvation  in  it  for  all  men  and  for  all  times ; 
a  meaning  which  we  discover  in  Scripture  as  we 
look  back  from  it  and  look  forward ;  a  meaning 
which  is  the  key  to  all  that  goes  before  and  to 
all  that  comes  after  (and  such  a  meaning  I  take 
it  to  have,  indisputably) — then  Gethsemane  and 
Calvary  cannot  be  invoked  to  refute,  but  only  to 
illustrate,  the  'dogmatic'  interpretation.  They 
are  too  great  to  be  satisfied  by  anything  else.* 

It  does  not  follow,  of  course,  that  they  were 
understood   at  once,  even   in   the   light   of  our 

*  Compare  K5hler,  Zvr  Lehrt  von  d»r  VersShnutigy  pp.  181,401. 
On  the  other  side  Fairbairn,  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion^ 
p.  435  ff. 

E 


66  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Lord's  words,  by  those  whom  he  left  as  His 
witnesses.  The  mind  can  easily  retain  words 
the  meaning  of  which  it  only  imperfectly  appre- 
hends. It  can  retain  words  by  which  it  is  in 
the  first  instance  moved  and  impressed,  rather 
than  enlightened.  It  can  retain  words  which 
are  sure,  when  reflection  awakens,  to  raise  many 
questions,  to  ask  for  definition  in  a  great  variety 
of  relations ;  and  it  can  retain  them  without  at 
first  having  any  consciousness  of  these  questions 
whatever.  It  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable 
that  it  was  so  with  the  disciples  of  Jesus.  We 
can  easily  believe  that  they  had  right  impressions 
from  our  Lord's  words,  before  they  had  clear 
ideas  about  them.  We  can  understand  even  that 
it  might  -be  natural  enough  for  them  to  ascribe 
to  Jesus  directly  what  was  only  indirectly  due 
to  Him,  because  in  the  absence  of  philosophical 
reflection  they  were  not  conscious  of  the  differ- 
ence. Not  that  one  would  include  under  this 
head  the  creative  words  of  Jesus  already  referred 
to  about  the  ransom  and  the  covenant  blood; 
these  bear  the  stamp  of  originality,  not  of  re- 
flection, upon  them  ;  it  is  their  greatness  to  explain 
all  things  and  to  be  explained  by  none.  But 
before  proceeding  to  examine  the  ideas  of  the 
primitive  Christian  Church  on  this  subject,  it  is 
necessary  to  give  an  explicit  utterance  on  the 
Resurrection,  and  the  gospel  presentation  of  it. 
The  Resurrection  of  Jesus  from  the  dead  is 


THE  RESURRECTION  67 

\ 
here  assumed  to  have  taken  place,  and,  more-  \ 

over,  to  have  had  the  character  which  is  ascribed  / 
to  it  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is  not  sufficient 
to  say  that  there  were  appearances  of  the  Jesus 
who  had  died  to  certain  persons — appearances 
the  significance  of  which  is  exhausted  when  we 
say  that  they  left  on  the  minds  of  those  who 
were  favoured  with  them  the  conviction  that 
Jesus  had  somehow  broken  the  bands  of  death. 
It  is  quite  true  that  St.  Paul,  in  setting  before 
the  Corinthians  the  historical  evidence  for  the 
Resurrection,  enumerates  various  occasions  on 
which  the  Risen  Lord  was  seen,  and  says  nothing 
about  Him  except  that  on  these  occasions  He  ap- 
peared to  Peter,  to  James,  to  the  Twelve,  to  more 
than  five  hundred  at  once,  and  so  on :  this  was 
quite  sufficient  for  his  purpose.  But  there  is  no  t 
such  thing  in  the  New  Testament  as  an  appearance  i 
of  the  Risen  Saviour  in  which  He  merely  appears.  [ 
He  is  always  represented  as  entering  into  relation 
to  those  who  see  Him  in  other  v/ays  than  by 
a  flash  upon  the  inner  or  the  outer  eye:  He 
establishes  other  communications  between  Him- 
self and  His  own  than  that  which  can  be  charac- 
terised in  this  way.  It  may  be  that  a  tendency 
to  materialise  the  supernatural  has  affected  the 
evangelical  narrative  here  or  there — that  Luke, 
for  instance,  who  makes  the  Holy  Spirit  descend 
upon  Jesus  in  bodily  form  as  a  dove  went  in- 
voluntarily  beyond    the    apostolic    tradition    in 


68  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

making  the  Risen  One  speak  of  His  flesh  and 
bones,  and  eat  a  bit  of  roast  fish  before  the 
disciples,  to  convince  them  that  He  was  no  mere 
ghost ;  it  may  be  so,  though  the  mode  of  Christ's 
being,  in  the  days  before  His  final  withdrawal,  is 
so  entirely  beyond  our  comprehension,  that  it  is 
rash  to  be  too  peremptory  about  it;  but  even  if 
it  were  so,  it  would  not  affect  the  representation 
as  a  whole  which  the  gospels  give  of  the  Re- 
surrection, and  of  the  relation  of  the  Risen  One 
to  His  disciples.  It  would  not  affect  the  fact, 
that  He  not  only  appeared  to  them,  but  spoke 
to  them.  It  would  not  affect  the  fact,  that  He 
not  only  appeared  to  them,  but  taught  them,  and 
in  particular  gave  them  a  commission  in  which 
the  meaning  of  His  own  life  and  work,  and 
their  calling  as  connected  with  it,  are  finally 
declared. 

Without  going  in  detail  into  the  critical  ques- 
tions here  involved,  yet  claiming  to  speak  with 
adequate  knowledge  of  them,  I  feel  it  quite 
impossible  to  believe  that  this  representation  of 
the  gospels  has  nothing  in  it.  How  much  the 
form  of  it  may  owe  to  the  conditions  of  trans- 
mission, repetition,  condensation,  and  even  inter- 
pretation, we  may  not  be  able  precisely  to  say, 
since  these  conditions  must  have  varied  in- 
definitely and  in  ways  we  cannot  calculate;  but 
the  fact  of  a  great  charge,  the  general  import  of 
which  was  thoroughly  understood,  seems  indis- 


THE  GREAT  COMMISSION  69 

putable.  All  the  gospels  give  it  in  one  form 
or  another ;  and  even  if  we  concede  that  the 
language  in  which  it  is  expressed  owes  something 
to  the  Church's  consciousness  of  what  it  had  come 
to  possess  through  its  risen  Lord,  this  does  not 
affect  in  the  least  the  fact  that  every  known  form 
of  the  evangelic  tradition  puts  such  a  charge, 
or  instruction,  or  commission,  into  the  lips  of 
Jesus  after  His  Resurrection.  The  historicity 
of  this  representation  I  cannot  question  ;  it  seems 
to  me  quite  gratuitous  (on  the  ground,  merely, 
that  the  apostles  did  not  at  once  proceed  to 
organise  a  universal  mission,  or  to  baptize  in  the 
Triune  name)  to  argue  that  in  everything  said  of 
Jesus,  except  that  He  appeared  to  His  disciples, 
the  Church  is  simply  putting  back  upon  Him 
and  His  authority  the  convictions  to  which  she 
had  come  under  the  guidance  of  His  Spirit. 
Granting  that  the  Resurrection  was  more  than 
Keim's  telegram  from  the  unseen,  convincing  the 
disciples  that  Jesus  outlived  death — granting  that 
it  was,  what  our  only  authorities  represent  it  to 
be,  the  manifestation  of  Jesus  in  another  mode  of 
being  in  which  it  was  possible  for  Him,  at  least 
for  a  time,  and  when  He  would,  to  have  com- 
munication with  His  own — granting  this,  there 
is  no  reason  why  He  should  not  have  said  such 
things  to  them  as  the  gospels  tell  us  He  did  say. 
We  cannot  refute  their  representation  by  turning 
from  the  last  page  of  Matthew  to  the  first  page 


(: 


7©  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

of  Acts,  and  finding  that  there  is  no  mission  to 
all  nations  there,  and  no  baptism  in  the  name  of 
the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
Such  a  refutation  has  only  the  show  of  success, 
because  it  treats  human  nature  as  if  it  were  sub- 
ject to  no  laws  but  those  of  logic.  Even  where 
nothing  but  logic  is  necessary,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  man  has  sometimes  been  found  wanting ; 
and  where  action  is  in  question,  there  is  much 
besides  to  be  considered.  Nor  is  it  any  explana- 
tion of  the  fact  that  the  final  charge  of  Jesus 
appears  in  all  the  gospels  where  it  does  appear 
to  say  that  it  represents  the  Church's  conscious- 
ness of  what  the  gospel  really  meant — a  con- 
sciousness only  acquired  by  degrees  under 
the  teaching  of  the  Spirit  —  thrown  back  upon 
the  authority  of  Christ  Himself.  There  is 
nothing  in  such  an  explanation  to  explain  why 
in  all  the  gospels  the  Church's  consciousness  of 
what  the  gospel  means,  of  its  contents  and  its 
destination,  is  ascribed  to  the  Risen  Christ 
There  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be  put  as  it 
is  except  that  the  fact  was  actually  so. 

What,  then,  is  the  content  of  the  teaching  or 
commission  of  the  Risen  Saviour,  which  all  the 
evangelists  give  in  one  form  or  another  ?  Luke 
has  some  peculiar  matter  in  which  he  tells  how 
Jesus  opened  the  minds  of  His  disciples  to  under- 
stand the  Scriptures,  recalling  the  words  He  had 
spoken  while  He  was  yet  with  them,  how  that  all 


THE  GREAT  COMMISSION  71 

things  must  be  fulfilled  which  were  written  in  the 
law  of  Moses  and  in  the  Prophets  and  in  the 
Psalms  concerning  Him.  If  Jesus  spoke  to  His 
disciples  at  all  about  what  had  befallen  Him,  all 
that  we  have  already  seen  as  to  His  teaching 
prepares  us  to  believe  that  it  was  on  this  line. 
Alike  for  Him  and  for  the  disciples  the  divine 
necessity  for  His  death  could  only  be  made  out 
by  connecting  it  with  intimations  in  the  Word  of 
God.  But  apart  from  this  instruction,  which  is 
referred  to  by  Luke  alone,  there  is  the  common 
testimony  with  which  we  are  mainly  concerned. 
In  Matthew  it  runs  thus  :  'Jesus  came  and  spoke 
to  them  saying,  All  power  has  been  given  to  Me 
in  heaven  and  on  earth.  Go  and  make  disciples 
of  all  the  nations,  baptizing  them  into  the  name 
of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  that  I 
have  commanded  you.  And  lo,  I  am  with  you 
all  the  days  until  the  end  of  the  world '  (Matt, 
xxviii.  18  ff.).  Here  we  notice  as  the  essential 
things  in  our  Lord's  words  (i)  the  universal 
mission ;  (2)  baptism ;  (3)  the  promise  of  a 
spiritual  presence.  In  Mark,  as  is  well  known, 
the  original  ending  has  been  lost.  The  last 
chapter,  however,  was  in  all  probability  the 
model  on  which  the  last  in  Matthew  was  shaped, 
and  what  we  have  at  present  instead  of  it  repro- 
duces the  same  ideas.  '  Go  into  all  the  world 
and  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature.      He 


^9  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved; 
but  he  that  disbelieveth  shall  be  condemned' 
(Mark  xvi.  1 5  f.).  What  follows,  as  to  the  signs 
which  should  attend  on  those  who  believe  these 
things — '  in  My  name  they  shall  cast  out  demons, 
they  shall  speak  with  new  tongues,  they  shall 
take  up  serpents,  and  if  they  drink  any  deadly 
thing  it  shall  not  hurt  them,  they  shall  lay 
hands  on  the  sick,  and  they  shall  recover' — 
shows  how  easy  it  was  to  expand  the  words  of 
Jesus  on  the  basis  of  experience,  just  as  a  modern 
preacher  sometimes  introduces  Jesus  speaking  in 
His  own  person,  and  promising  what  the  preacher 
knows  by  experience  He  can  and  will  do  ;  but  it 
does  not  follow  from  this  that  the  commission  to 
preach  and  its  connection  with  baptism  are  un- 
historical.  In  Luke  the  commission  is  connected 
with  the  teaching  above  referred  to.  *  He  said 
to  them.  Thus  it  is  written  that  the  Christ  should 
suffer,  and  should  rise  from  the  dead  on  the  third 
day,  and  that  repentance  for  remission  of  sins 
should  be  preached  in  His  name  to  all  the  nations, 
beginning  from  Jerusalem'  (Luke  xxiv.  46  f). 
Here  again  we  have  (i)  the  universal  commission  ; 
(2)  repentance  and  remission  of  sins.  In  John 
what  corresponds  to  this  runs  as  follows :  *  Jesus 
therefore  said  to  them  again,  Peace  be  unto  you. 
As  the  Father  hath  sent  Me,  even  so  send  I  you. 
And  when  He  had  said  this,  He  breathed  on 
them  and  saith  to  them.  Receive  ye  the  Holy 
Spirit:    whose  soever  sins  ye   forgive  they  arc 


BAPTISM,  FORGIVENESS,  AND  DEATH     73 

forgiven  unto  them  :  whose  soever  sins  ye  retain 
they  are  retained'  (John  xx.  21  f.).  Here  once 
more  we  have  (i)  a  mission,  though  its  range  is 
not  defined  ;  (2)  a  message,  the  sum  and  sub- 
stance of  which  has  to  do  with  forgiveness  of 
sins ;  and  (3)  a  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  '  But 
what,'  it  may  be  asked, '  has  all  this  to  do  with 
the  death  of  Jesus?  The  death  of  Jesus  is  not 
expressly  referred  to  here,  except  in  what  Luke 
tells  about  His  opening  the  minds  of  the  disciples 
to  understand  the  Scriptures,  and  that  simply 
repeats  what  we  have  already  had  before  us.' 

The  answer  is  apparent  if  we  consider  the 
context  in  which  the  ideas  found  in  this  com- 
mission are  elsewhere  found  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. In  all  its  forms  the  commission  has  to  do 
either  with  baptism  (so  in  Matthew  and  Mark) 
or  with  the  remission  of  sins  (so  in  Luke  and 
John).  These  are  but  two  forms  of  the  same 
thing,  for  in  the  world  of  New  Testament  ideas 
baptism  and  the  remission  of  sins  are  inseparably 
associated.  But  the  remission  of  sins  has  already 
been  connected  with  the  death  of  Jesus  by  the 
words  spoken  at  the  supper,  or  if  not  by  the  very 
words  spoken,  at  least  by  the  significance 
ascribed  to  his  blood  as  covenant-blood  ;  and  if 
the  Risen  Saviour,  in  giving  His  disciples  their 
finaV  commission,  makes  the  forgiveness  of  sins 
the  bu»"den  of  the  gospel  they  are  to  preach, 
v/hich  seems  to  me  indubitable,  He  at  the  same 
time  puts  at  the  very  heart  of  the  gospel  Hts 


74  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

own  covenant-founding,  sin-annulling  death. 
This  inference  from  the  evangelic  passages  which 
record  the  intercourse  of  the  Risen  Lord  with 
His  disciples  may  strike  some,  at  the  first  glance, 
as  artificial ;  but  the  air  of  artificiality  will  pass 
away,  provided  we  admit  the  reality  of  that 
intercourse,  and  its  relation  both  to  the  past 
teaching  of  Jesus  and  to  the  future  work  of  the 
apostles.  There  is  a  link  wanted  to  unite  what 
We  have  seen  in  the  gospels  with  what  we 
find  when  we  pass  from  them  to  the  other  books 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  that  link  is  exactly 
Tsupplied  by  a  charge  of  Jesus  to  His  disciples 
I  to  make  the  forgiveness  of  sins  the  centre 
f  of  their  gospel,  and  to  attach  it  to  the  rite  by 
^  which  men  were  admitted  to  the  Christian 
society.  In  an  age  when  baptism  and  remission 
of  sins  were  inseparable  ideas — when,  so  to 
speak,  they  interpenetrated  each  other — it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  sense  of  our  Lord's  charge  is 
given  in  some  of  the  gospels  in  one  form,  in 
some  in  the  other:  that  here  He  bids  them 
baptize,  and  there  preach  the  forgiveness  of  sins. 
It  is  not  the  form  on  which  we  can  lay  stress, 
but  only  the  import.  The  import,  however,  is 
secure.  Its  historicity  can  only  be  questioned 
by  those  who  rcfluce  the  resurrection  to  mere 
appearances  of  Jesus  to  the  disciples — appear- 
ances which,  as  containing  nothing  but  them- 
selves, and  as  unchecked  by  any  other  relation 


THE  BOOK  OF  ACTS  75 

to  reality,  are  essentially  visionary.  And  its 
significance  is  this  :  it  is  the  very  thing  which  is 
wanted  to  evince  the  unity  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  the  unity  and  consistency  of  the 
Christian  religion,  as  they  have  been  presented 
to  us  in  the  historical  tradition  of  the  Church. 
Here,  where  the  final  revelation  is  made  by  our 
Lord  of  all  that  His  presence  in  the  world  means 
and  involves,  we  find  Him  dealing  with  ideas — 
baptism  and  forgiveness — which  alike  in  His  own 
earlier  teaching,  and  in  the  subsequent  teaching 
of  the  apostles,  can  only  be  defined  by  relation 
to  His  death. 

When  we  pass  from  the  gospels  to  the  earliest 
period  of  the  Church's  life  we  are  again  im- 
mersed in  critical  difficulties.  It  is  not  easy  to 
use  the  book  of  Acts  in  a  way  which  will  com- 
mand universal  agreement.  Renan's  remark  that 
the  closing  chapters  are  the  most  purely  historical 
of  anything  in  the  New  Testament,  while  the 
opening  ones  are  the  least  historical,  is  at  least 
plausible  enough  to  make  one  cautious.  But 
while  this  is  so,  there  is  a  general  consent  that  in 
the  early  chapters  there  is  a  very  primitive  type 
of  doctrine.  The  Christian  imagination  may 
have  transfigured  the  day  of  Pentecost,  and 
turned  the  ecstatic  praise  of  the  first  disciples 
into  a  speaking  in  foreign  languages,^  but  some 

*  For  the  best  exftmination  of  this  see  Chase's  Hulseam  Ltctum 
and  Vernon  Bartlet's  AcU  (Century  Bible). 


76  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

source  or  sources  of  the  highest  value  underlie 
the  speeches  of  Peter.  They  do  not  represent 
the  nascent  Catholicism  of  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century,  but  the  very  earliest  type  of 
preaching  Jesus  by  men  who  had  kept  company 
with  Him.  It  would  be  out  of  place  here  to 
dwell  on  the  primitive  character  of  the  Christ- 
ology,  but  it  is  necessary  to  refer  to  it  as  a 
guarantee  for  the  historical  character  of  the 
speeches  in  which  it  occurs.  Consider,  then, 
passages  like  these :  '  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  man 
approved  of  God  unto  you  by  mighty  works  and 
wonders  and  signs  which  God  did  by  Him  in  the 
midst  of  you,  even  as  ye  yourselves  know ' 
(ii.  22);  'God  hath  made  Him  both  Lord  and 
Christ,  this  Jesus  whom  ye  crucified  *  (ii.  36) ; 
'Jesus  of  Nazareth,  how  that  God  anointed  Him 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  power ;  who  went 
about  doing  good,  and  healing  all  that  were 
oppressed  of  the  devil,  for  God  was  with  Him* 
(x.  38).  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  in  words 
like  these  we  have  a  true  echo  of  the  earliest 
Christian  preaching.  And  it  is  equally  im- 
possible to  deny  that  the  soteriology  which 
accompanies  this  Christology  is  as  truly  primi- 
tive. What  then  is  it,  and  what,  in  particular, 
is  the  place  taken  in  it  by  the  death  of  Jesus? 

It  is  sometimes  asserted  broadly  that  the  real 
subject  of  these  early  speeches  in  Acts  is  not  the 
death  of  Jesus  but  the  resurrection  ;  the  death,  it 


THE  RESURRECTION  IN  BOOK  OF  ACTS     77 

is  said,  has  no  significance  assigned  to  it ;  it  is 
only  a  difficulty  to  be  got  over.  But  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  confusion  in  this.  No  doubt  the 
apostles  were  witnesses  of  the  resurrection,  and 
the  discourses  in  these  chapters  are  specimens  of 
their  testimony.  The  resurrection  is  emphasised 
in  them  with  various  motives.  Sometimes  the 
motive  may  be  called  apologetic  :  the  idea  is  that 
in  spite  of  the  death  it  is  still  possible  to  believe 
in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  ;  God  by  raising  Him 
from  the  dead  has  exalted  Him  to  this  dignity. 
Sometimes  it  may  be  called  evangelistic.  You 
killed  Him,  the  preacher  says  again  and  again 
(ii.  23  f.,  iii.  14  f.,  V.  30  f.),  and  God  exalted  Him 
to  His  right  hand.  In  these  two  appreciations  of 
Jesus  lies  the  motive  for  a  great  spiritual  change 
in  sinful  men.  Sometimes,  again,  the  resurrec- 
tion is  referred  to  in  connection  with  the  gift  of 
the  Spirit ;  the  new  life  in  the  Church,  with  its 
wonderful  manifestations,  attests  the  exaltation 
of  Jesus  (ii.  33).  Sometimes,  once  more,  it  is 
connected  with  His  return,  either  to  bring  times 
of  refreshing  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord 
(iii.  20  f.),  or  as  Judge  of  the  quick  and  the  dead 
(x.  42).  But  this  preoccupation  with  the  resur- 
rection in  various  aspects  and  relations  does  not 
mean  that  for  the  first  preachers  of  the  gospel 
the  death  of  Jesus  had  no  significance,  or  no 
fundamental  significance.  Still  less  does  it  mean 
that  the  death  of  Jesus  was  nothing  to  them  but 


78  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

a  difficulty  in  the  way  of  retaining  their  faith  m 
His  Messiahship,  a  difficulty  which  the  resurrec- 
tion enabled  them  to  surmount — its  sinister 
significance  being  discounted,  so  to  speak,  by 
the  splendour  of  this  supreme  miracle.  This  last 
idea,  that  the  cross  in  itself  is  nothing  but  a 
scandal,  and  that  all  the  New  Testament  inter- 
pretations of  it  are  but  ways  of  getting  over  the 
scandal,  cannot  be  too  emphatically  rejected.  It 
ignores,  in  the  first  place,  all  that  has  been 
already  established  as  to  our  Lord's  own  teach- 
ing about  the  necessity  and  the  meaning  of  His 
death — which  has  nothing  to  do  with  its  being  a 
aKavZaXov.  And  it  ignores,  in  the  second  place, 
the  spiritual  power  of  Christ's  death  in  those  who 
believe  in  Him,  alike  as  the  New  Testament 
exhibits  it,  and  as  it  is  seen  in  all  subsequent 
ages  of  the  Church.  The  gospel  would  never 
have  been  known  as  'the  word  of  the  cross'  if 
the  interpretation  of  the  cross  had  merely  been 
an  apologetic  device  for  surmounting  the  theo- 
retical difficulties  involved  in  the  conception  of  a 
crucified  Messiah.  Yet  nothing  is  commoner 
than  to  represent  the  matter  thus.  The  apostles, 
it  is  argued,  had  to  find  some  way  of  getting  over 
the  difficulty  of  the  crucified  Messiah  theoreti- 
cally, as  well  as  practically ;  the  resurrection 
enabled  them  to  get  over  it  practically,  for  it 
annulled  the  death  ;  and  the  various  theories  of 
a    saving    significance    ascribed    to    the    deatli 


\ 

5 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  CHRIST'S  DEATH     79 

enabled  them  to  get  over  it  theoretically — that  is 
all.  Nothing,  I  venture  to  say,  could  be  more 
hopelessly  out  of  touch  alike  with  New  Testament  i 
teaching  and  with  all  Christian  experience  than 
such  a  reading  of  the  facts.  A  doctrine  of  the 
death  of  Jesus,  which  was  merely  the  solution  of  an 
abstract  difficulty — the  answer  to  a  conundrum — 
could  never  have  become  what  the  doctrine  of  .' 

i 

the  death  of  Jesus  is  in  the  New  Testament — the  ' 
centre   of  gravity   in   the   Christian  world.      It 
could  never  have  had  stored  up  in  it  the  redeem- 
ing virtue  of  the  gospel.    It  could  never  have  been 
the  hiding-place  of  God's  power,  the  inspiration 
of  all  Christian  praise.    Whatever  the  doctrine  of 
Jesus'  death  may  be,  it  is  the  feeblest  of  all  mis- 
conceptions to  trace  it  to  the  necessity  of  saying 
something  about  the  death  which  should  as  far  as 
possible  remove  the  scandal  of  it.     '  I  delivered^ 
unto  you  first  of  all,'  says  St.  Paul  to  the  Corin-  \^ 
thians,  'that  which  I  also  received,  that  Christ  \ 
died  for  our  sins,  according  to  the  Scriptures'/ 
(l  Cor.  XV.  3).     St.  Paul  must  have  received  this 
doctrine  from  members  of  the  primitive  Church. 
He  must  have  received  it  in  the  place  which  he 
gave  it  in  his  own  preaching — that  is,  as  the  first 
and  fundamental  thing  in  the  gospel.     He  must 
have  received  it  within  seven  years — if  we  follow 
some  recent   chronologies,  within  a  very  much 
shorter  period — of  the  death  of  Jesus.   Even  if  the 
book  of  Acts  were  so  preoccupied  with  the  resurrec- 


8o  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

tion  that  it  paid  no  attention  to  the  independent 
significance  of  the  death,  it  would  be  perfectly 
fair,  on  the  ground  of  this  explicit  reference  of 
St.  Paul,  to  supplement  its  outline  of  primitive 
Christian  doctrine  with  some  definite  teaching  on 
atonement ;  but  when  we  look  closely  at  the 
speeches  in  Acts,  we  find  that  our  situation  is 
much  more  favourable.  They  contain  a  great 
deal  which  enables  us  to  see  how  the  primi- 
tive Church  was  taught  to  think  and  feel  on  this 
important  subject. 

Here  we  have  to  consider  such  points  as  these, 
(i)  The  death  of  Christ  is  repeatedly  presented, 
as  in  our  Lord's  own  teaching,  in  the  light 
of  a  divine  necessity.  It  took  place  'by  the 
determined  counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God  * 
(ii.  23).  That  His  Christ  should  suffer,  was  what 
God  foretold  by  the  mouth  of  all  His  prophets 
(iii.  18).  In  His  death,  Jesus  was  the  stone 
which  the  builders  rejected,  but  which  God  made 
the  head  of  the  corner  (iv.  i).  All  the  enemies 
of  Jesus,  both  Jew  and  Gentile,  could  only  do 
to  Him  what  God's  hand  and  counsel  had  deter- 
I  mined  before  should  be  done  (iv.  28).  A  divine 
necessity,  we  must  remember,  is  not  a  blind  but 
a  seeing  one.  To  find  the  necessity  for  the 
death  of  Jesus  in  the  word  of  God  means  to  find 
,  that  His  death  is  not  only  inevitable  but  in- 
\  dispensable,  an  essential  part  of  the  work  He 


THE  SERVANT  OF  THE  LORD  81 

had  to  do.  Not  blank  but  intelligible  and  moral 
necessity  is  meant  here. 

Hence  (2)  we  notice  further  the  frequent  identi- 
fication, in  these  early  discourses,  of  the  suffering 
Messiah  with  the  Servant  of  the  Lord  in  the 
Book  of  Isaiah.  '  The  God  of  our  Fathers  hath 
glorified  His  Servant  Jesus '  (iii.  13).  '  Of  a  truth, 
in  this  city,  both  Herod  and  Pontius  Pilate  were 
gathered  together  against  Thy  holy  Servant 
Jesus'  (iv.  27).  The  same  identification  is  in- 
volved in  the  account  of  Philip  and  the  Ethiopian 
eunuch.  The  place  of  the  Scripture  which  the 
eunuch  read  was  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah, 
and  beginning  from  that  Scripture  Philip  preached 
to  him  Jesus  (viii.  35).  We  cannot  forget  that 
the  impulse  to  this  connection  was  given  by  our 
Lord  Plimself,  and  that  it  runs  through  His  whole 
ministry,  from  His  baptism,  in  which  the  heavenly 
voice  spoke  to  Him  words  applied  to  the  Servant 
of  the  Lord  in  Isaiah  xlii.  i,  to  the  last  night  of 
His  life  when  he  applied  to  Himself  the  mysterious 
saying.  He  was  numbered  with  transgressors 
(Luke  xxii.  27)-  The  divine  necessity  to  suffer 
is  here  elevated  into  a  specific  divine  necessity, 
namely,  to  fulfil  through  suffering  the  vocation  of 
one  who  bore  the  sins  of  many,  and  made  interces- 
sion for  the  transgressors. 

This  connection  of  ideas  in  the  primitive 
Church  is   made  clearer  still,  when   we  notice 

F 


83  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

/  (3)  that  the^rcat  blessing  of  the  gospel,  offered 
C^in  the  name  of  Jesus,  is  the  forgiveness  of  sins. 
/"This  is  the  refrain  of  every  apostolic  sermon. 
/    Thus  in  ii.  38 :  '  Repent  and  be  baptized  every 
f      one  of  you  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  unto 
remission  of  your  sins.*     In  iii.  19,  immediately 
after  the  words,  the  things  that  God  declared 
before  through  the  mouth  of  all  the  prophets, 
that  His  Christ  should  suffer.  He  thus  fulfilled — 
we  read :  '  Repent  therefore  and  turn,  that  your 
sins   may   be   blotted   out.'     In   v.   31    Jesus   is 
exalted  a  Prince  and  a  Saviour  to  give  repent- 
ance to  Israel  and  forgiveness  of  sins.     In  x.  43, 
after  rehearsing  in  outline  the  life,  death,  and 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  Peter  concludes  his  sermon 
in  the  house  of  Cornelius:  *To  him  bear  all  the 

(prophets  witness,  that  every  one  who  believes  in 
Him  shall  receive  forgiveness  of  sins  through 
His  name.'  This  prominence  given  to  the  re- 
mission of  sins  is  not  accidental,  and  must  not 
be  separated  from  the  context  essential  to  it  in 
Christianity.  It  is  part  of  a  whole  system  of 
ideas,  and  other  parts  which  belong  to  the  same 
whole  with  it  in  the  New  Testament  are  baptism 
and  the  death  of  Christ.  The  book  of  Acts,  like 
all  the  other  books  in  the  New  Testament,  was 
written  inside  of  the  Christian  society,  and  for 
those  who  were  at  home  inside;  it  was  not 
written  for  those  who  had  no  more  power  of 
Interpreting  what  stood  on  the  page  than  the 


THE  SACRAMENTS  IN  ACTS  83 

letter  itself  supplied.  It  does  not  seem  to  me 
in  the  least  illegitimate,  but  on  the  contrary  I 
both  natural  and  necessary,  to  take  all  these  1 
references  to  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  to 
baptism  as  references  at  the  same  time  to  the  sav- 
ing significance  (in  relation  to  sin)  of  the  death  of^ 
Jesus.  This  is  what  is  suggested  when  Jesus  is 
identified  with  the  Servant  of  the  Lord.  This  is 
what  we  are  prepared  for  by  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  and  by  the  great  commission  ;  and  we 
are  confirmed  in  it  by  what  we  find  in  the  rest 
of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  not  a  suflScient 
answer  to  this  to  say  that  the  connection  of  ideas 
asserted  here  between  the  forgiveness  of  sins  or 
baptism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  death  of  Jesus 
on  the  other,  is  not  explicit;  it  is  self-evident  to 
any  one  who  believes  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  Christianity  as  a  whole,  and  that  it  is  coherent 
and  consistent  with  itself,  and  who  reads  with  a 
Christian  mind.  The  assumption  of  such  a  con- 
nection at  once  articulates  all  the  ideas  of  the 
book  into  a  system,  and  shows  it  to  be  at  one 
with  the  gospels  and  epistles ;  and  suchan  as  sump- 
tion, for  that  very  reason,  vindicates  itself. 

Besides  the  references  to  baptism  and  the  for- 
giveness of  sins,  we  ought  to  notice  also  (4)  the 
reference  in  ii.  42  to  the  Lord's  Supper.  '  They 
continued  stedfastly  ...  in  the  breaking  of 
the  bread.'  It  may  seem  to  some  excessively 
venturous  to  base  anything  on  the  Sacraments 


84  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

when  everything  connected  with  them  i«  bcin« 
brought  into  dispute,  and  their  very  connection 
with  Jesus  is  denied.  But  without  going  into 
the  infinite  and  mostly  irrelevant  discussions 
I  which  have  been  raised  on  the  subject,  I  venture 
\  to  say  that  the  New  Testament  nowhere  gives 
\  us  the  idea  of  an  unbaptized  Christian — ^by  one 
Spirit  we  were  all  baptized  into  one  body  (i  Cor. 
xii.  13) — and  that  Paul,  in  regulating  the  observ- 
ance of  the  Supper  at  Corinth,  regulates  it  as 
part  of  the  Christian  tradition  which  goes  back 
for  its  authority,  through  the  primitive  Church, 
to  Christ  Himself.  '  I  received  of  the  Lord  that 
which  also  I  delivered  unto  you'  (i  Cor.  xi.  23). 
In  other  words,  there  was  no  such  thing  known 
to  Paul  as  a  Christian  society  without  baptism 
as  its  rite  of  initiation,  and  the  supper  as  its  rite 
of  communion.  And  if  there  was  no  such  thing 
known  to  Paul,  there  was  no  such  thing  in  the 
world.  There  is  nothing  in  Christianity  more 
primitive  than  the  Sacraments,  and  the  Sacra- 
ments, wherever  they  exist,  are  witnesses  to 
the  connection  between  the  death  of  Christ  and 
the  forgiveness  of  sins.  It  is  explicitly  so  in 
the  case  of  the  Supper,  and  the  expression  of 
St.  Paul  about  being  baptized  into  Christ's  death 
(Rom.  vL  3)  shows  that  it  is  so  in  the  case  of 
the  other  Sacrament  too.  The  apostle  was  not 
saying  anything  of  startling  originality,  when  he 
wrote  the  beginning  of  Rom.  vi. :  '  Know  ye  not 


THE  SACRAMENTS  IN  ACTS  85 

that  all  we  who  were  baptized  into  Christ  Jesu« 
were  baptized  into  His  death?'  Every  Christian 
knew  that  in  baptism  what  his  mind  was  directed 
to,  in  connection  with  the  blessing  of  forgiveness, 
was  the  death  of  Christ.  Both  Sacraments,  there- 
fore, are  memorials  of  the  death,  and  it  is  not 
due  to  any  sacramentarian  tendency  in  Luke, 
but  only  brings  out  the  place  which  the  death  of 
Christ  had  at  the  basis  of  the  Christian  religion, 
as  the  condition  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  when 
he  gives  the  sacramental  side  of  Christianity  the 
prominence  it  has  in  the  early  chapters  of  Acts. 
/  From  the  New  Testament  point  of  view,  the 
I  Sacraments  contain  the  gospel  in  brief;  they 
contain  it  in  inseparable  connection  with  the 
death  of  Jesus ;  and  as  long  as  they  hold  their 
place  in  the  Church  the  saving  significance  of 
that  death  has  a  witness  which  it  will  not  be 
easy  to  dispute. 

It  is  customary  to  connect  with  the  Petrine 
discourses  in  Acts  an  examination  of  the  First 
Epistle  of  Peter.  It  is  not,  indeed,  open  to  dis- 
pute that  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter  shows  traces 
of  dependence  upon  one  or  perhaps  more  than 
one  epistle  of  Paul.  There  are  different  ways 
in  wliich  this  may  be  explained.  Peter  and  PauR^ 
were  not  at  variance  about  the  essentials  of| 
Christianity,  as  even  the  second  chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians  proves ;  if  they  had  any 
intimate  relations  at  all,  it  is  a  priori  probable 


86  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

that  the  creative  mind  of  Paul  would  leave  its 
mark  on  the  more  receptive  intelligence  of  Peter; 
something  also  may  be  due  to  an  amanuensis, 
Silvanus  (i  Pet.  v.  12)  or  another,  who  had  seen 
(as  was  possible  enough  in  Peter's  lifetime)  letters 
of  Paul  like  those  to  the  Romans  or  Ephesians. 
But  we  must  take  care  not  to  exaggerate  either 
the  originality  of  Paul,  or  the  secondary  character 
of  Peter.  Paul's  originality  is  sometimes  an  affair 
rather  of  dialectic  than  invention  :  he  is  original 
rather  in  his  demonstration  of  Christianity  than 
in  his  statement  of  it.  The  thing  about  which 
he  thinks  and  speaks  with  such  independent  and 
I  creative  power  is  not  his  own  discovery;  it  is  the 
I  common  tradition  of  the  Christian  faith ;  that 
which  he  delivers  to  others,  and  on  which  he 
expends  the  resources  of  his  original  and  irre- 
pressible mind,  he  has  himself  in  the  first  instance 
received  (i  Cor.  xv.  3).  And  Peter  may  often  be 
explained,  where  explanation  is  necessary,  not 
\  by  reference  to  Paul,  but  by  reference  to  the 
I  memory  of  Jesus  in  the  first  instance,  and  to  the 
>i  suggestions  of  the  Old  Testament  in  the  next 
His  antecedents,  properly  speaking,  are  not 
Pauline,  but  prophetic  and  evangelic.  And  if 
there  are  formal  characteristics  of  his  epistle 
which  have  to  be  explained  by  reference  to  his 
great  colleague,  the  substance  of  it,  so  far  as  our 
subject  is  concerned,  points  not  so  much  to  Paul 
at  to  Jesus  and  the  ancient  Scripture*.     What 


THE  FIRST  EPISTLE  OF  PETER         87 

ideas,  then,  we  may  ask,  does  the  First  Epistle 
of  Peter  connect  with  the  death  of  Jesus? 

To  begin  with,  the  death  of  Jesus  has  the 
central  place  in  the  writer's  mind  which  it  every- 
where has  in  the  New  Testament.  He  describes 
himself  as  a  '  witness  of  the  sufferings  of  the 
Christ'  (v.  i).  MdpTv<;  is  to  be  taken  here  in  its 
full  compass ;  it  means  not  only  a  spectator  of, 
but  one  who  bears  testimony  to.  The  writer's 
testimony  to  the  sufferings  of  the  Christ  is  one 
in  which  their  significance  is  brought  out  in 
various  aspects ;  but  though  this  sense  of 'witness' 
is  emphasised,  it  by  no  means  excludes  the  other; 
rather  does  it  presuppose  it.  Peter  seems  to 
prefer  'sufferings'  to  'death'  in  speaking  of  the 
Christ,  perhaps  because  he  had  been  an  eye- 
witness, and  because  'sufferings'  served  better 
than  'death'  to  recall  all  that  his  Lord  had 
endured.  Death  might  be  regarded  merely  as 
the  end  of  life,  not  so  much  a  moral  reality,  as 
a  limit  or  termination  to  reality ;  but  sufferings 
are  a  part  of  life,  with  moral  content  and  mean- 
ing, which  may  make  an  inspiring  or  pathetic 
appeal  to  men.  In  point  of  fact  it  is  the  moral 
quality  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Christ,  and  their 
exemplary  character,  which  first  appeal  to  the 
apostle.  As  he  recalls  what  he  had  seen  as  he  \ 
stood  by  the  great  sufferer,  what  impresses  him  \ 
most  is  His  innocence  and  patience.  He  had  I 
done   no   sin,   neither  was  guile   found   in   His 


88  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

mouth.  When  he  was  reviled,  he  reviled  not 
again ;  when  he  suff-'red  he  did  not  threaten, 
but  committed  himself  to  Him  who  judges 
righteously  (ii.  22  f.).  In  this  character  of  the 
patient  and  innocent  sufferer  Peter  commends 
Jesus  to  Christians,  especiaUy  slaves,  who  were 
having  their  first  experience  of  persecution,  and 
finding  how  hard  it  was  not  only  to  suffer  with- 
out cause,  but  actually  to  suffer  for  doing  well, 
for  loving  fidelity  to  God  and  righteousness.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  press  the  parallel  unduly,  or 
to  argue  (as  Seeberg  has  done  ^)  that  the  suffering 
Christians  in  imitation  of  the  Christ  will  have  in 
all  respects  the  same  kind  of  result,  or  the  same 
kind  of  influence,  as  His.  Yet  Peter  identifies 
the  two  to  some  extent  when  he  says,  in  iv.  13, 
Ye  are  partakers  in  the  sufferings  of  the  Christ. 
This  is  a  genuinely  evangelical  point  of  view. 
Jesus  calls  on  all  His  followers  to  take  up  their 
cross,  and  walk  in  His  steps.  The  whole  mass 
of  suffering  for  righteousness'  sake,  which  has 
been  since  the  world  began  and  will  be  to  its 
close,  is  '  the  sufferings  of  the  Christ ' ;  all  who 
have  any  part  in  it  are  partners  with  Him  in  the 
pain,  and  will  be  partners  also  in  the  glory  which 
is  to  be  revealed.  So  far,  it  may  be  said,  there 
is  no  theological  reflection  in  the  epistle ;  it 
occupies  the  standpoint  of  our  Lord's  first  lesson 
on  the  Cross:    I   must  suffer  for  righteousness' 

»  Seeberg,  Der  Tod  Christie  p.  292. 


SPRINKLING  OF  THE  BLOOD  OF  JESUS    89 

sake,  and  so  must  all  who  follow  me  (Matt.  xvf. 
21-24) — with  the  admonition  annexed,  Let  it  be 
in  the  same  spirit  and  temper,  not  with  amaze- 
ment, irritation,  or  bitterness. 

But  the  epistle  has  other  suggestions  which  it 
is  necessary  to  examine.  The  first  is  found  inj 
the  salutation.  This  is  addressed  to  the  electi 
who  are  sojourners  of  the  Dispersion  in  Pontus, 
Galatia,  Cappadocia,  Asia,  and  Bithynia,  accord- 
ing to  the  foreknowledge  of  God  the  Father,  in 
sanctification  of  the  Spirit,  unto  obedience  and  * 
sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  (i.  i  f.).  In 
this  comprehensive  address,  a  whole  world  of 
theological  ideas  is  involved.  Christians  are 
what  they  are  as  elect  according  to  the  fore- 
knowledge of  God.  Their  position  does  not  rest 
on  assumptions  of  their  own,  or  on  any  movable 
basis,  but  on  the  eternal  goodwill  of  God  which 
has  taken  hold  of  them.  This  goodwill,  which 
they  know  to  be  eternal — that  is,  to  be  the  last 
reality  in  the  world — has  come  out  in  their 
consecration  by  the  Spirit.  The  Spirit,  standing 
as  it  does  here  between  God  the  Father  and  Christ, 
must  be  the  Holy  Spirit,  not  the  spirit  of  the 
Christian  ;  the  consecration  is  wrought  not  upon 
it  but  by  it.  The  readers  of  the  epistle  would  no 
doubt  connect  the  words,  and  be  intended  by  the 
writer  to  connect  them,  with  their  baptism  ;  it 
was  in  baptism  that  the  Spirit  was  received,  and 
that  the  eternal  goodwill  of  God  became  a  thing 


90  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

which  the  individual  (of  course  through  faith) 
grasped  in  time.  But  what  is  in  view  in  this  eternal 
goodwill  and  its  manifestation  in  time  ?  It  has 
in  view  'obedience  and  the  sprinkling  of  the 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ.'  We  cannot  miss  the 
reference  here  to  the  institution  of  the  covenant 
in  Exodus  xxiv.  There  we  find  the  same  ideas  in 
the  same  relation  to  each  other.  '  Moses  took  the 
book  of  the  covenant,  and  read  in  the  audience 
of  the  people ;  and  they  said,  All  that  the  Lord 
hath  spoken  will  we  do,  and  be  obedient.  And 
Moses  took  the  blood,  and  sprinkled  it  on  the 
people  and  said,  Behold  the  blood  of  the  covenant 
yrhich  the  Lord  hath  made  with  you  upon  all 
i  these  conditions.'  Such  a  sprinkling  with  cove- 
\  nant  blood,  after  a  vow  of  obedience,  is  evidently 
iin  Peter's  mind  here.  We  have  already  seen,  in 
connection  with  the  institution  of  the  Lord's 
supper,  what  covenant  blood  means.  As  sacri- 
ficial, it  is  sin-covering ;  it  is  that  which  annuls 
sin  as  the  obstacle  to  union  with  God.  Within 
the  covenant,  God  and  man  have,  so  to  speak,  a 
common  life.  God  is  not  excluded  from  human 
life;  He  enters  into  it  and  achieves  His  ends  in 
the  world  through  it  Man  is  not  excluded  from 
the  divine  life  ;  God  admits  him  to  His  friendship 
and  shows  him  what  he  is  doing ;  He  becomes  a 
partaker  in  the  divine  nature,  and  a  fellow-worker 
with  God.  ^ut  the  covenant  is  made  by  sacri- 
fice; its  basis  and  being  are  in  the  blood.      In 


SPRINKLING  OF  THE  BLOOD  OF  JESUS    91 

this  passage,  therefore,  election  and  consecration 
have  in  view  a  life  of  obedience,  in  union  and 
communion  with  God ;  and  such  a  life,  it  is 
assumed,  is  only  possible  for  those  who  are 
sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ.  In 
other  words,  it  is  this  only  which  has  abiding 
power  in  it  to  annul  sin  as  that  which  comes 
between  God  and  man.  It  is  sometimes  said 
that  the  position  of  the  blood  in  this  passage — 
after  obedience — points  to  its  sanctifying  virtue, 
its  power  to  cleanse  the  Christian  progressively, 
or  ever  afresh,  from  all  sin ;  but  if  we  use 
technical  language  at  all,  we  should  rather  say 
that  its  character  as  covenant-blood  obviously 
suggests  that  on  its  virtue  the  Christian  is  per- 
petually dependent  for  his  justification  before 
God.  With  this  blood  on  us  we  have  peace  with 
Him,  and  the  calling  to  live  in  that  peace. 

The  second  express  reference  to  the  saving 
significance  of  our  Lord's  death  occurs  in  ch.  i. 
18  ff.  Peter  is  exhorting  those  to  whom  he 
writes  to  a  life  of  holiness,  and  he  uses  various 
arguments  in  support  of  his  plea  for  sanctifica- 
tion.^  First,  it  answers  to  the  essential  relations 
between  man  and  God.  '  As  He  who  called  you 
is  holy  show  yourselves  also  holy  in  all  your 
behaviour'  (i.  15).  Second,  it  is  required  in 
view  of  the  account  they  must  render.  '  If  ye 
invoke  as  Father  Him  who  without  respect  of 

*  Compare  Kahler,  Zur  Lehrt  von  der  Versohnung^  p.  239. 


9a  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

persons  judges  according  to  every  man's  work, 
pass  the  time  of  your  sojourning  here  in  fear' 
(i.  17).  And,  third,  they  have  been  put  in  a  posi- 
tion to  live  a  holy  life  by  the  death  of  Christ. 
'  Knowing  that  you  were  ransomed,  not  with 
.  corruptible  things;  silver  and  gold,  from  your 
I  vain  manner  of  life,  handed  uown  from  your 
I  fathers ;  but  with  precious  blood,  as  of  a  lamb 
f  without  blemish  and  without  spot,  even  the 
■  blood  of  Christ'  (i.  18  f.).  A  lamb  without 
blemish  and  without  spot  is  a  sacrificial  lamb, 
and  the  virtue  here  ascribed  to  the  blood  of 
Christ  is  some  sort  of  sacrificial  virtue.  The 
preciousness  of  the  blood  cannot  be  otherwise 
explained  than  by  saying  that  it  was  Christ's 
blood.  But  what  is  the  virtue  here  ascribed  to 
it?  By  it  Christians  were  ransomed  from  a  vain 
manner  of  life  handed  down  from  their  fathers. 
The  iKvTp(o6t]Te  of  this  passage  is  no  doubt  an 
echo  of  the  XvTpov  uvtX  iroXKiav  in  Mark  x.  45. 
The  effect  of  Christ's  death  was  that  for 
Christians  a  peculiar  kind  of  servitude  ended; 
when  it  told  on  them  their  life  was  no  longer  in 
bondage  to  vanity  and  to  custom.  The  expres- 
sion e/c  T^9  fjMTaia^i  vfidv  avaaTpo(f)i]<i  irarpo- 
irapahorov  is  a  very  striking  one.  Life  before  the 
death  of  Christ  has  touched  it  is  fiaraia'.  t.e.  it 
is  futile,  it  is  a  groping  or  fumbling  after  some- 
thing it  can  never  find ;  it  gets  into  no  effective 
contact   with   reality ;  it   has   no  abiding  fruit 


REDEMPTION  FROM  VANITY  93 

From  this  subjection  to  vanity  it  is  redeemed  by 
the  blood  of  Christ.  When  the  power  of  Christ's 
Passion  enters  into  any  life  it  is  not  futile  any 
more :  there  is  no  more  the  need  or  the  inclina- 
tion to  cry  fiaratoTf)^  fiaraiorijTtov,  all  is  vanity. 
Nothing  can  be  more  real  or  satisfying  than  the 
life  to  which  we  are  introduced  by  the  death  of 
Christ ;  it  is  a  life  in  which  we  can  have  fruit, 
much  fruit,  and  fruit  that  abides ;  hence  the 
introduction  to  it,  as  iXvrpwO'qre  suggests,  is  a 
kind  of  emancipation.  Similarly,  life  before  the 
death  of  Christ  has  touched  it  is  irarpoTrapdSoTo^ ; 
it  is  a  kind  of  tradition  or  custom,  destitute  of 
moral  originality  or  initiative.  A  man  may? 
think  he  is  himself,  and  that  he  is  acting  X 
freely  and  spontaneously,  when  he  is  only  in-  1 
dulging  self-will,  or  yielding  to  impulses  of 
nature  in  him  through  which  a  genuine  moral 
personality  has  never  been  able  to  emerge ;  but 
it  is  the  power  of  Christ's  passion  descending 
into  the  heart  which  really  begets  the  new 
creature,  to  whom  moral  responsibility — his  own 
— is  an  original  thing,  a  kind  of  genius,  in  virtue 
of  which  he  docs  what  nobody  in  the  world  ever 
did  before,  and  feels  both  free  and  bound  to 
do  so.  The  moral  originality  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment life  is  a  miracle  that  never  grows  old  ;  and 
whatever  in  the  form  of  this  epistle  may  be  due 
to  a  mind  more  creative  than  that  of  the  writer, 
9t  this  point,  at  any  rate,  we  catch  the  note  of  an 


94  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

independent  experience.  Now  this  new  life  of 
the  Christian,  with  its  satisfying  reality,  and  its 
wonderful  freedom,  was  bought  with  the  blood 
of  Christ. 

It  is  possible  to  argue  that  the  new  life  is  called 
forth  immediately  by  the  death  of  Christ — that  is, 
that  the  impression  produced  by  the  spectacle  of 
the  cross,  if  we  may  so  speak,  quite  apart  from  its 
interpretation,  emancipates  the  soul.  But  there  is 
something  unreal  in  all  such  arguments.  The 
/death  of  Christ  was  never  presented  to  the  world 
/  merely  as  a  spectacle.  It  was  never  presented 
\  by  any  apostle  or  evangelist  apart  from  an  inter- 
\  pretation.  It  was  the  death  of  Christ  so  in- 
terpreted as  to  appeal  irresistibly  to  the  heart,  the 
conscience,  the  imagination,  perhaps  we  should 
sometimes  include  the  very  senses  of  men,  which 
exercised  the  emancipating  power.  And  the  only 
hint  which  is  here  given  of  the  line  of  interpreta- 
tion is  that  which  is  involved  in  the  reference  to 
the  sacrificial  Iamb.  It  was  the  death  of  Christ 
not  uninterpreted  (which  is  really  equivalent  to 
non-significant)  but  interpreted  in  some  way  as 
a  death  for  our  sins  which  exercised  this  bene- 
ficent power  to  liberate  and  to  recreate  the  soul. 
A  clearer  light  is  cast  on  the  nature  of  the  con- 
nection between  Christ's  death  and  the  moral 
emancipation  of  believers  by  the  third  passage  in 
which  the  apostle  makes  a  detailed  reference  to 
the  subject    It  is  that  io  which  the  example  of 


CHRIST'S  SUFFERINGS  EXEMPLARY    95 

Christ  in  his  sufferings  is  set  before  Christian 
slaves  who  are  called  to  suffer  unjustly.  Peter 
pleads  with  them  to  be  patient.  *  W  hat  glory  is 
it  if  when  you  do  wrong  and  are  beaten,  you  take 
it  patiently  ?  But  if  when  you  do  good  and  suffer 
for  it  you  take  it  patiently  this  is  acceptable  with 
God.  For  this  is  what  you  were  called  for :  for 
Christ  also  suffered  for  you  {virep  vfi&v  eiraOev), 
leaving  you  an  example  that  ye  should  follow 
in  His  steps.'  So  ii.  20  f.  It  is  the  exemplary 
character  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  that  is  in 
view  when  the  writer  goes  on  :  *  Who  did  no  sin, 
neither  was  guile  found  in  His  mouth ;  who  when 
He  was  reviled  reviled  not  again,  under  suffering 
did  not  threaten,  but  committed  His  cause  to  Him 
who  judges  righteously.'  In  all  this  (ii.  22  f.) 
the  appeal  of  the  example  is  clear.  It  is  equally 
clear  that  in  what  follows  the  exemplary  char- 
acter of  Christ's  sufferings  is  left  behind,  or 
transcended,  and  that  they  are  put  in  another 
aspect.  It  is  as  though  the  apostle  could  not 
turn  his  eyes  to  the  Cross  for  a  moment  without 
being  fascinated  and  held  by  it ;  he  saw  far  more 
in  it  habitually,  and  he  saw  far  more  in  it  now, 
than  was  needed  to  point  his  exhortation  to  the 
wronged  slaves  ;  it  is  not  iAeir  interest  in  it,  as 
the  supreme  example  of  suffering  innocence  and 
patience,  but  the  interest  of  all  sinners  in  it  as 
the  only  source  of  redemption,  by  which  he  is 
ultimately  inspired  :  'Who  His  own  self  bare  our 


96  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

sins  in  His  body  upon  the  tree,  that  we  having 
died  unto  (the)  sins  might  live  unto  righteous- 
ness: by  whose  stripes  ye  were  healed.'  The 
enlargement  of  view  is  shown  by  the  change  to 
the  first  person  (He  bore  our  sins,  that  we  might 
live,  etc.),  the  writer  including  himself  and  all 
Christians  with  those  whom  he  addresses  in 
the  benefits  of  Christ's  death  ;  it  is  only  in  the 
last  clause — '  by  whose  wound  you  were  healed ' 
— that  he  returns  to  his  immediate  subject,  the 
slaves  who  were  bufi'eted  for  doing  well.  What, 
then,  precisely  is  it  which  is  here  affirmed  of 
Christ  in  His  death? 

Literally,  it  is  that  He  Himself  bore  our  sins 
in  His  body  on  to  the  tree.  The  expression 
ava<f)€peiv  afiaprlav  is  not  common  :  it  occurs 
only  in  Is.  liii.  12  and  Num.  xiv.  33,  the  more 
usual  expression  being  Xafi^dveiv.  But  it  seems 
absurd  for  this  reason,  and  for  the  reason  that 
dpa(f>ep€tv  ri>  iirl  to  Ova-iaarrjpiov  is  a  common 
expression,  to  argue  that  here  the  tree  or  cross 
is  regarded  as  an  altar,  to  which  sin  was  literally 
carried  up  to  be  slain.^  That  which  is  slain  at 
the  altar  is  always  regarded  as  a  gift  acceptable 
to  God  :  the  slaying  is  onfy  the  method  in  which 
it  is  irrevocably  made  His ;  and  nothing  is  more 
perverse  than  the  attempt  to  present  sin  in  this 
light      The  words  of  the  apostle  must  be  inter- 

*  See,  for  instance,  Alford's  note  on  the  p«sMige,  and  the  qualified 
Mpport  gives  to  it  in  Bigg's  CoMvuntary. 


THE  BEARING  OF  SIN  97 

preted  as  the  simple  sense  of  Christians  always 
has  interpreted  them  :  that  Christ  bore  our  sins  in 
His  body  as  He  ascended  the  Cross,  or  ascended 
to  it.  There  is  something  in  the  words  iv  r^ 
trcofiari  and  eVl  to  ^xikov  which  leaves  a  singular 
and  even  poignant  impression  of  reality  on  the 
mind.  To  us  the  Passion  is  idealised  and  trans- 
figured ;  •  the  tree '  is  a  poetic  name  for  the  Cross, 
under  which  the  hard  truth  is  hidden.  But  awfia 
means  flesh  and  blood,  and  ^v\ov  means  timber. 
We  may  have  wondered  that  an  apostle  and  eye- 
witness should  describe  the  sinlessness  and  the 
suffering  of  Jesus,  as  the  writer  of  this  epistle 
does,  almost  entirely  in  words  quoted  from  the 
Old  Testament ;  but  even  as  we  wonder,  and  are 
perhaps  visited  with  misgivings,  we  are  startled 
by  these  words  in  which  the  Passion  is  set  before 
us  as  a  spectacle  of  human  pain  which  the  writer 
had  watched  with  his  own  eyes  as  it  moved  to  its 
goal  at  the  Cross.  But  this  reminiscent  pictorial 
turn  which  he  has  given  to  his  expression  does 
not  alter  the  meaning  of  the  principal  words —  I 
*  Who  His  own  self  bore  our  sins.'  This  is  the  I 
interpretation  of  the  Passion  :  it  was  a  bearing  of  I 
sin.  Now,  to  bear  sin  is  not  an  expression  for 
which  we  have  to  invent  or  excogitate  a  meaning  : 
it  is  a  familiar  expression,  of  which  the  meaning 
is  fixed.  Thus,  to  take  the  instance  referred  to 
above  (Num.  xiv.  34) :  '  After  the  number  of  the 
days  in  which  ye  spied  out  the  land, even  forty  days, 

G 


98  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

/  for  every  day  a  year,  shall  ye  bear  your  iniquities': 
/  the  meaning  clearly  is,  bear  the  consequences  of 
them,  take  to  yourselves  the  punishment  which 
they  involve.  Or  again,  in  Lev.  v.  17:  *  If  any 
one  sin,  and  do  any  of  the  things  which  the  Lord 
hath  commanded  not  to  be  done,  though  he  knew 
it  not,  yet  is  he  guilty,  and  shall  bear  his  iniquity': 
the  meaning  is  as  clearly,  he  shall  underlie  the 
consequences  attached  by  the  law  to  his  act.  Or 
again,  in  Ex.  xxviii.  43,  where  the  sons  of  Aaron 
are  to  observe  punctually  the  laws  about  their 
official  dress,  'that  they  bear  not  iniquity  and 
die':  to  die  and  to  bear  iniquity  are  the  same 
thing,  death  being  the  penalty  here  denounced 
against  impiety.  Expressions  like  these  indicate 
the  line  on  which  we  are  to  fill  out  the  meaning 
of  the  words,  *  Who  His  own  self  bare  our  sins.' 
They  are  meant  to  suggest  that  Christ  took  on 
Him  the  consequences  of  our  sins — that  He  made 
our  responsibilities,  as  sin  had  fixed  them,  His 
own.  He  did  so  when  He  went  to  the  Cross — 
t,e.  in  His  death.  His  death,  and  His  bearing  of 
our  sins,  are  not  two  things,  but  one.  It  may  be 
true  enough  that  He  bore  them  on  His  spirit,  that 
He  saw  and  felt  their  exceeding  sinfulness,  that 
He  mourned  over  them  before  God  ;  but  however 
true  and  moving  such  considerations  may  be,  they 
are  not  what  the  apostle  means  in  the  passage 
before  us.  He  meins  that  all  the  responsibilities  \ 
in  which  sio   has   involved    us — responsibilities   / 


THE  BEARING  OF  SIN  99 

which  are  summed  up  in  that  death  which  is  the 
wages  of  sin — have  been  taken  by  Christ  upon 
Himself.  His  interpretation  of  the  Passion  is 
that  it  is  a  bearing  of  sin — more  precisely,  that 
it  is  the  bearing  of  others'  sin  by  one  who  is 
Himself  sinless.  (Num.  xxx.  15,  Heb.  16.)  The 
apostle  does  not  raise  the  question  whether  it  is 
possible  for  one  to  assume  the  responsibilities  of '^ 
others  in  this  way  ;  he  assumes  (and  the  assump- 
tion, as  we  shall  see,  is  common  to  all  the  New 
Testament  writers)  that  the  responsibilities  of 
sinful  men  have  been  taken  on  Himself  by  th 
sinless  Lamb  of  God.  This  is  not  a  theorem  he 
is  prepared  to  defend  ;  it  is  the  gospel  he  has  to 
preach.  It  is  not  a  precarious  or  a  felicitous' 
solution  of  an  embarrassing  difficulty — the  death 
of  the  Messiah ;  it  is  the  foundation  of  the 
Christian  religion,  the  one  hope  of  sinful  men. 
It  may  involve  a  conception  of  what  Christ 
is,  which  would  show  the  irrelevance  of  the 
objection  just  referred  to,  that  one  man  cannot 
take  on  him  the  responsibilities  of  others  ;  but 
leaving  that  apart  for  the  moment,  the  idea  of 
such  an  assumption  is  unquestionably  that  of 
this  passage.  It  is  emphasised  by  the  very 
order  of  the  words — 89  ra<;  afiapria^  rjfxSyv  avr6<i 
avTnve<yKev ;  it  was  not  His  own  but  our  sins  that 
were  borne  at  Calvary. 

To  that  which  was  so  done  Peter  annexes  the 
aim  of  it.     He  bore  our  sins,  that  having  died 


loo  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

to  the  sins,  we  might  live  to  righteousness.  It  is 
not  possible  to  argue  from  diroyevofievoi  that  our 
death  was  involved  in  His — that  we  actually  or 
ideally  died  when  He  did,  and  so  have  no  more 
relation  to  sins.  It  is  quite  fair  to  render,  'that 
we  might  die  to  our  sins  and  live  to  righteous- 
ness.' A  new  life  involves  death  to  old  relations, 
and  such  a  new  life,  involving  such  death,  is 
the  aim  of  Christ's  bearing  of  our  sins.  How 
this  effect  is  mediated  the  apostle  does  not 
say.  Once  we  understand  what  Christ's  death 
means — once  we  receive  the  apostolic  testi- 
mony that  in  that  death  He  was  taking  all 
our  responsibilities  upon  Him — no  explanation 
^  may  be  needed.  The  love  which  is  the  motive 
/  of  it  acts  immediately  upon  the  sinful ;  gratitude 
exerts  an  irresistible  constraint ;  His  responsi- 
bility means  our  emancipation  ;  His  death  our 
life  ;  His  bleeding  wound  our  healing.  Whoever 
says  'He  bore  our  sins'  says  substitution;  and 
to  say  substitution  is  to  say  something  which 
involves  an  immeasurable  obligation  to  Christ, 
and  has  therefore  in  it  an  incalculable  motive 
power.  This  is  the  answer  to  some  of  the 
objections  which  are  commonly  made  to  the 
idea  of  substitution  on  moral  grounds.  They 
fail  to  take  account  of  the  sinner's  sense  of 
debt  to  Christ  for  what  He  has  done,  a  sense 
of  debt  which  it  is  not  too  much  to  designate 
as    the    n?ost    intimate,    intense,    and    uniform 


RIGHTEOUS  FOR  UNRIGHTEOUS      loi 

characteristic  of  New  Testament  life.  It  is 
this  which  bars  out  all  ideas  of  being  saved 
from  the  consequences  of  sin,  while  living  on  in 
sin  itself  It  is  so  profound  that  the  whole 
being  of  the  Christian  is  changed  by  it ;  it  is 
so  strong  as  to  extinguish  and  to  create  at  once  ; 
under  the  impression  of  it,  to  use  the  apostle's 
words  here,  the  aim  of  Christ's  bearing  of  our 
sins  is  fulfilled  in  us — we  die  to  the  sins  and  live 
to  righteousness. 

This  interpretation  of  the  passage  in  the  second 
chapter  is  confirmed  when  we  proceed  to  the  one 
in  the  third.  The  subject  is  still  the  same,  the 
suffering  of  Christians  for  righteousness'  sake.  '  It 
is  better,'  says  the  apostle  in  iii.  17,  *  if  the  will  of 
God  should  have  it  so,  to  suffer  doing  well  than 
doing  ill.  For  Christ  also  died  once  for  sins,  the 
righteous  for  the  unrighteous,  that  He  might 
conduct  us  to  God.'  Here,  as  in  the  previous 
passage,  an  exemplary  significance  in  Christ's 
sufferings  is  assumed,  and  to  it  apparently  the 
writer  reverts  in  iv.  i  ('as  Christ  therefore  suf- 
fered in  the  flesh,  arm  yourselves  likewise  with 
the  same  mind*),  but  it  is  not  this  exemplary 
significance  on  which  he  enlarges.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  a  connection  which  the  death 
of  Christ,  or  His  Passion,  has  with  sins. 
Christ,  he  says,  died  in  connection  with  sins 
once  for  all  (aTra^);  His  death  has  a  unique 
significance  in  this  relation.      What  the  special 


loa  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

connection  was  is  indicated  in  the  words  BUaio^ 
virep  dBUcov.  It  is  the  obvious  implication  of 
these  words  that  the  death  on  which  such  stress 
is  laid  was  something  to  which  the  unrighteous 
were  liable  because  of  their  sins,  and  that  in  their 
interest  the  Righteous  One  took  it  on  Himself. 
When  He  died  for  them,  it  was  t/tet'r  death  which 
He  died.  His  death  has  to  be  defined  by  relation 
to  sin,  but  it  is  the  sin  of  others,  not  His  own. 
The  writer  no  more  asks  here  than  he  asked  in 
the  previous  case.  How  can  such  things  be? 
He  does  not  limit  the  wi//  of  love — he  does  not, 
in  a  world  made  and  ruled  by  God,  limit  before- 
hand the  power  of  love — to  take  on  it  to  any 
extent  the  responsibility  of  others.  This  is  his 
f  gospel,  that  a  Righteous  One  has  once  for  all 
I  faced  and  taken  up  and  in  death  exhausted  the 
I  responsibilities  of  the  unrighteous,  so  that  they 
q  no  more  stand  between  them  and  God ;  his 
\  business  is  not  to  prove  this,  but  to  preach  it 
The  only  difference  is  that  whereas  in  the  second 
chapter,  if  we  can  draw  such  a  distinction  in  the 
New  Testament,  the  aim  is  a  moral  one  (that  we 
may  die  to  sin  and  live  to  righteousness),  in  the 
present  case  it  is  religious  (^\x^\.  He  might  conduct 
us  to  God).  The  word  trpoadyeiv  has  always  a 
touch  of  formality  in  it ;  it  is  a  great  occasion 
when  the  Son  who  has  assumed  our  respon- 
sibilities for  us  takes  us  by  the  hand  to  bring 
us  to  the  Father.     We  find  the  same  idea  of  the 


ACCESS  TO  GOD  103 

vpoaayaiyT^  as  the  great  Christian  privilege  in 
Rom.  V.  2,  Eph.  ii.  18.  Sin,  it  is  implied, 
keeps  man  at  a  distance  from  God  ;  but  Christ 
has  so  dealt  with  sin  on  man's  behalf  that  its 
separative  force  is  annulled  ;  for  those  who  com- 
mit themselves  to  Christ,  and  to  the  work  which 
He  has  done  for  them  in  His  Passion,  it  is 
possible  to  draw  near  to  God  and  to  live  in 
His  peace.  This  is  the  end  contemplated  in 
His  dying  for  sins  once,  the  righteous  for  the 
unrighteous.  We  can  only  repeat  here  what 
has  just  been  said  in  connection  with  the  pre- 
vious passage.  If  Christ  died  the  death  in  which 
sin  had  involved  us — if  in  His  death  He  took  the 
responsibility  of  our  sins  upon  Himself — no  word 
is  equal  to  this  which  falls  short  of  what  is  meant 
by  calling  Him  our  substitute.  Here  also,  as  in 
the  second  chapter,  the  substitution  of  Christ  in 
His  death  is  not  an  end  in  itself:  it  has  an  ulterior 
end  in  view.  And  this  end  is  not  attained  except 
for  those  who,  trusting  in  what  Christ  has  done,  find 
access  to  God  through  Him.  Such  access,  we 
must  understand,  is  not  a  thing  which  can  be 
taken  for  granted.  It  is  not  for  the  sinful  to 
presume  on  acceptance  with  God  whenever  they 
want  it.  Access  to  God  is  to  the  Apostle  the 
most  sublime  of  privileges,  purchased  with  an 
unspeakable  price ;  for  such  as  we  are  it  is  only 
possible  because  for  our  sins  Christ  died.  And 
just  as  in  the  ancient   tabernacle  every  object 


104     V        THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

used  in  worship  had  to  be  sprinkled  with  atoning 
blood,  so  all  the  parts  of  Christian  worship,  all 
our  approaches  to  God,  should  consciously  rest 
on  the  atonement.  They  should  be  felt  to  be 
a  privilege  beyond  price ;  they  should  be  pene- 
trated with  the  sense  of  Christ's  Passion,  and  of 
the  love  with  which  He  loved  us  when  He  suffered 
for  sins  once  for  all,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  that 
He  might  conduct  us  to  God. 

There  is  no  other  passage  in  the  First  Epistle 
of  Peter  which  speaks  with  equal  explicitness  of 
the  saving  significance  of  Christ's  death.  But 
the  passages  which  have  just  been  reviewed  are 
all  the  more  impressive  from  the  apparently 
incidental  manner  in  which  they  present  them- 
selves to  us.  The  apostle  is  not  avowedly 
discussing  the  theology  of  the  Passion.  There 
is  nothing  in  his  epistle  like  that  deliberate 
grappling  with  the  problem  of  the  justification 
of  the  ungodly  which  we  find,  for  example,  in 
the  third  and  fourth  chapters  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans.  His  general  purpose,  indeed,  is 
quite  different.  It  is  to  exhort  to  patience  and 
constancy  Christians  who  are  suffering  for  the 
first  time  severe  persecution,  and  who  are  dis- 
posed to  count  it  a  strange  thing  that  has 
befallen  them  ;  the  suffering  Christ  is  held  up 
to  them  as  an  example.  He  is  the  first  of 
martyrs,  and  all  who  suffer  for  righteousness' 
sake,  as    they  share   the    suffering    which    He 


EXAMPLE  AND  ATONEMENT  105 

endured,  should  confront  it  in  the  same  spirit  . 
which  He  displayed.      But  the  imitation  of  Jesus  \ 
is  not  an  independent  thing  for  the  apostle;  at  ) 
least  he  never  speaks  of  it  by  itself.     It  is  the 
sense  of  obligation  to  Christ  which  enables  us  to  . 
lift  our  eyes  to  so  high  an  example ;  and  Peter  'i 
glides  insensibly,  on  every  occasion,  from  Christ   \ 
the  pattern  of  innocence  and  patience  in  suffer-  i 
ing  to   Christ   the   sacrificial   lamb,    Christ   the  ' 
bearer  of   sin,   Christ   who    died,   righteous   for 
unrighteous  men.      It  is  here  the  inspiration  is 
found  for  every  genuine  iniitatio  Christi,  and  the 
unforced,  inevitable  way   in   which  the  apostle 
falls  regularly  back  on  the  profounder  interpreta- 
tion of  the  death  of  Christ,  shows  how  central  and 
essential  it  was  in  his  mind.      He  does  not  dwell 
anywhere  of  set  purpose  on  the  attitude  of  the 
soul   to   this  death,  so   as   to    make    clear    the 
conditions    on    which    it    becomes   effective   for 
the   Christian's  emancipation   from  a  vain   and 
custom-ridden  life,  for  his  death  to  sin,  or  for 
his  introduction  to  God.     As  has  been  already 
remarked,  the  sense  of  obligation  to  Christ,  the 
sense  of  the  love  involved  in  what  He  has  done 
for  men,  may  produce  all  these  effects  immedi- 
ately.    But  there  are  two   particulars  in  which 
the  first  epistle  of  Peter  makes  a  near  approach 
to  other   New   Testament   books,  especially  to 
Pauline  ones,    in    their  conception  of  the   con- 
ditions on  which  the  blessings  of  the  gospel  are 


io6  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

enjoyed,  and  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  refer 
to  them  here.  The  first  is  the  emphasis  it  lays 
on  faith.  The  testing  of  the  Christian  life  is 
spoken  of  as '  the  trying  of  your  faith '  (i.  7) ;  the 
salvation  of  the  soul  is  'the  end  of  your  faith' 
(i.  9);  Christians  are  those  'who  through  Him* 
— that  is,  through  Christ — 'have  faith  in  God' 
(i.  21).  The  other  is  the  formula  'in  Christ,' 
which  has  sometimes  been  treated  almost  as  if 
it  were  the  signature  of  St.  Paul.  It  occurs  in 
the  last  verse  of  the  epistle:  *  Peace  be  to  you  all 
that  are  in  Christ.'  Probably  it  is  not  too  bold 
to  suggest  that  in  these  two  ideas — that  of  'faith' 
and  that  of  being  '  in  Christ ' — we  have  here,  as 
elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament,  a  clue  to  the 
terms  on  which  all  the  Christian  facts,  and  most 
signally  the  death  of  Christ,  as  the  apostle  inter- 
prets it,  have  their  place  and  efficacy  in  the  life 
of  men. 

It  is  not  possible  to  base  anything  on  the 
Second  Epistle  ascribed  to  Peter.  The  one 
expression  to  be  found  in  it,  bearing  on  our 
subject,  is  the  description  of  certain  false 
teachers  in  ch.  ii.  i,  as  'denying  the  Master 
who  bought  them '  (rbv  dyopdaavra  avrov^ 
BecTTOTijv  dpvovfjL€voi)i  The  idea  of  drfopd^eiv 
is  akin  to  that  of  Xvrpovp,  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  other  places  emphasises  the  fact  that 
we  are  bought  with  a  price  (i  Cor.  vi.  20, 
vii.   23),  and    that  the   price    is   the    blood    of 


THE  SECOND  EPISTLE  OF  PETER     107 

Christ  (Rev.  v.  9.) ;  but  though  these  ideas 
no  doubt  underlie  the  words  just  quoted,  there 
is  no  expansion  or  application  of  them  in  the 
context.  The  passage  takes  for  granted  the 
common  faith  of  Christians  in  this  connection, 
but  does  not  directly  contribute  to  its  elucidation. 


io8  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  EPISTLES  OF  ST.  PAUL 

When  we  pass  from  primitive  Christian  preach- 
ing to  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul,  we  are  embarrassed 
not  by  the  scantiness  but  by  the  abundance  of 
our  materials.  It  is  not  possible  to  argue  that 
the  death  of  Christ  has  less  than  a  central,  or 
rather  than  the  central  and  fundamental  place,  in 
the  apostle's  gospel.  But  before  proceeding  to 
investigate  more  closely  the  significance  he 
assigns  to  it,  there  are  some  preliminary  con- 
siderations to  which  it  is  necessary  to  attend. 
Attempts  have  often  been  made,  while  admitting 
that  St.  Paul  teaches  what  he  does  teach,  to  evade 
it — either  because  it  is  a  purely  individual  inter- 
pretation of  the  death  of  Jesus,  which  has  no 
authority  for  others ;  or  because  it  is  a  theo- 
logoumenon,  and  not  a  part  of  the  apostolic  testi- 
mony ;  or  because  it  is  not  a  fixed  thing,  but  a 
stage  in  the  development  of  apostolic  thought, 
which  St.  Paul  was  on  the  way  to  transcend,  and 
would  eventually  have  transcended,  and  which 
we  (by  his  help)  can  quite  well  leave  behind  us; 
or  because  it  is  really  inconsistent  with  itself,  a 
bit  of  patchwork,  pieced  out  here  and  there  with 


TEACHING  OF  ST.  PAUL  109 

incongruous  elements,  to  meet  the  exigencies 
of  controversy ;  or  because  it  unites,  in  a  way 
inevitable  for  one  born  a  Pharisee,  but  simply 
false  for  those  who  have  been  born  Christian, 
conceptions  belonging  to  the  imperfect  as  well 
as  to  the  perfect  religion — conceptions  which  it 
is  our  duty  to  allow  to  lapse.  I  do  not  propose 
to  consider  such  criticisms  of  St.  Paul's  teaching 
on  the  death  of  Christ  directly.  For  one  thing, 
abstract  discussion  of  such  statements,  apart 
from  their  application  to  given  cases,  never 
leads  to  any  conclusive  results  ;  for  another, 
when  we  do  come  to  the  actual  matters  in 
question,  it  often  happens  that  the  distinctions 
just  suggested  disappear ;  the  apostolic  words 
have  a  virtue  in  them  which  enables  them  to 
combine  in  a  kind  of  higher  unity  what  might 
otherwise  be  distinguished  as  testimony  and 
theology.  But  while  this  is  so  it  is  relevant,  and 
one  may  think  important,  to  point  out  certain 
characteristics  of  St.  Paul's  presentation  of  his 
teaching  which  constitute  a  formidable  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  those  who  would  evade  it. 

The  first  is,  the  assurance  with  which  he  ex- 
presses himself.  The  doctrine  of  the  death  of 
Christ  and  its  significance  was  not  St.  Paul's 
theology,  it  was  his  gospel.  It  was  all  he  had  to 
preach.  It  is  with  it  in  his  mind — immediately 
after  the  mention  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who 
gave  Himself  for  our  sins,  that  Hi  might  deliver  us 


no  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

fro7n  this  present  world  with  all  its  evils — that  he 
says  to  the  Galatians :  '  Though  we  or  an  angel 
from  heaven  preach  a  gospel  to  you  contra- 
vening the  gospel  which  we  preached,  let  him  be 
anathema.  As  we  have  said  before,  so  say  I  now 
again,  if  any  man  is  preaching  a  gospel  to  you 
contravening  what  you  received,  let  him  be 
anathema '  (Gal.  i.  4,  8  f ).  I  cannot  agree  with 
those  who  disparage  this,  or  affect  to  forgive  it,  as 
the  unhappy  beginning  of  religious  intolerance. 
Neither  the  Old  Testament  nor  the  New  Testa- 
ment has  any  conception  of  a  religion  without  this 
intolerance.  The  first  commandment  is,  '  Thou 
shalt  have  none  other  gods  beside  Me,'  and  that 
is  the  foundation  of  the  true  religion.  As  there  is 
only  one  God,  so  there  can  be  only  one  gospel. 
If  God  has  really  done  something  in  Christ  on 
which  the  salvation  of  the  world  depends,  and  if 
he  has  made  it  known,  then  it  is  a  Christian  duty 
to  be  intolerant  of  everything  which  ignores, 
denies,  or  explains  it  away.  The  man  who  per- 
verts it  is  the  worst  enemy  of  God  and  men  ;  and 
it  is  not  bad  temper  or  narrowmindedness  in  St. 
Paul  which  explains  this  vehement  language,  it 
is  the  jealousy  of  God  which  has  kindled  in  a 
soul  redeemed  by  the  death  of  Christ  a  corre- 
sponding jealousy  for  the  Saviour.  It  is  in- 
tolerant only  as  Peter  is  intolerant  when  he 
says,  'Neither  is  there  salvation  in  any  other' 
(Acts  iv.  12),  or  John,   when  he  says,  '  He  that 


ST.  PAUL'S  INTOLERANCE  tii 

hath  the  Son  hath  the  life ;  he  that  hath  not 
the  Son  of  God  hath  not  the  life'  (i  John  v. 
12);  or  Jesus  Himself  when  He  says,  *  No  man 
knoweth  the  Father  save  the  Son,  and  he  to 
whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him ' 
(Matt.  xi.  27).  Intolerance  like  this  is  an 
essential  element  in  the  true  religion  ;  it  is  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  in  it ;  the  unforced 
and  uncompromising  defence  of  that  on  which 
the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  the  world 
depends.  If  the  evangelist  has  not  something  to 
preach  of  which  he  can  say,  If  any  man  makes  it 
his  business  to  subvert  this,  let  him  be  anathema, 
he  has  no  gospel  at  all.  Intolerance  in  this  sense 
has  its  counterpart  in  comprehension  ;  it  is  when 
we  have  the  only  gospel,  and  not  till  then,  that 
we  have  the  gospel  for  all.  It  is  a  great  argument, 
therefore,  for  the  essential  as  opposed  to  the  casual 
or  accidental  character  of  St.  Paul's  teaching  on 
Christ's  death — for  it  is  with  this  that  the  epistle 
to  the  Galatians  is  concerned — that  he  displays 
his  intolerance  in  connection  with  it.  To  touch 
his  teaching  here  is  not  to  do  something  which 
leaves  his  gospel  unaffected ;  as  he  understands 
it,  it  is  to  wound  his  gospel  mortally. 

Another  consideration  of  importance  in  this 
connection  is  St.  Paul's  relation  to  the  common 
Christian  tradition.  No  doubt  this  apostle  was 
an  original  thinker,  and  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians    he    is    concerned    to    vindicate    his 


lis  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

originality,  or  at  least  his  independence ;  but 
his  originality  is  sometimes  exaggerated.  He 
did  not  invent  Christianity ;  there  were  apostles 
and  preachers  and  men  in  Christ  before  him. 
And  he  tells  us  expressly  that  in  the  funda- 
mentals of  Christianity  he  not  only  agreed  with 
them,  but  was  indebted  to  them.  '  I  delivered 
unto  you  first  of  all  that  which  I  also  received^ 
that  Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the 
Scriptures,  and  that  He  was  buried,  and  that  He 
hath  been  raised  the  third  day,  according  to  the 
Scriptures*  (i  Cor.  xv.  3).  It  is  impossible  to 
leave  out  of  the  tradition  which  St.  Paul  had  him- 
self received,  and  which  he  transmitted  to  the 
Corinthians,  the  reference  to  the  meaning  of 
Christ's  death — 'He  6\cA  for  our  sins  according 
to  the  Scriptures' — and  to  limit  it  to  the  fact: 
the  fact  needed  no  such  authentication.  It  is 
the  fact  in  its  meaning  for  sinners  which  con- 
stitutes a  gospel,  and  this,  he  wishes  to  assert, 
is  the  only  gospel  known.  '  Whether  it  be  I  or 
they — whether  it  be  I  or  the  twelve  apostles  at 
Jerusalem — this  is  the  way  we  preach,  and  it  was 
thus  that  you  became  believers'  (i  Cor.  xv.  11). 
And  the  doctrinal  tradition  of  Christianity,  if  we 
may  call  it  so,  was  supplemented  and  guaranteed 
by  the  ritual  one.  In  the  same  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians  St.  Paul  says  again,  speaking  of  the 
Supper,  *  I  received  of  the  Lord  that  which  also 
I  delivered  unto  you'  (i  Cor.  xL  23).    An  im- 


ST.  PAUL  AND  TRADITION  113 

mediate  supernatural  revelation  of  what  took 
place  on  the  last  night  of  our  Lord's  life  has  no 
affinity  to  anything  we  know  of  revelations  :  we 
must  understand  St.  Paul  to  say  that  what  he  had 
handed  on  to  the  Corinthians  had  before  been 
handed  on  to  him,  and  went  back  originally  to 
the  Lord  Himself.  The  Lord  was  the  point 
from  which  it  started.  But  Paul  could  not  re- 
ceive this  ritual  tradition,  and  we  know  he  did 
not,  without  receiving  at  the  same  time  the  great 
interpretative  words  about  the  new  covenant  in 
Christ's  blood,  which  put  the  death  of  Christ, 
once  for  all,  at  the  foundation  of  the  Gospel.^ 
It  is  not  Paulinism  which  does  this,  it  is  the 
Christianity  of  Christ.  The  point  at  issue  be- 
tween the  apostle  and  his  Jewish  Christian 
adversaries  was  not  whether  Christ  had  died 
for  sins;  every  Christian  believed  that.  It  was 
rather  how  far  this  death  of  Christ  reached  in  the 
way  of  producing  or  explaining  the  Christian 
life.  To  St.  Paul  it  reached  the  whole  way ;  it 
explained  everything;  it  supplanted  everything 

*  Cf.  Soltau,  Unsere  EvangelieHy  S.  85 ;  '  The  apostles  and 
evangelists  who  went  about  two  by  two  from  church  to  church 
preaching  everywhere  the  Word  of  God,  must  have  had  a  fixed 
basis  for  the  instruction  they  gave.  And  when  Paul  (l  Cor. 
xi.  23)  declares  of  his  account  of  the  Supper,  "  I  have  received 
it  from  the  Lord,"  he  points  in  doing  so  to  a  formulation  of 
Christian  teaching  once  for  all  fixed  and  definite.'  In  a  note  he 
adds  that  St.  Paul's  words,  'the  Lord  Jesus  on  the  night  on 
which  He  was  betrayed,'  even  show  an  affinity  to  the  synoptic 
oarratlTC. 


114  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

he  could  call  a  righteousness  of  his  own ;  it  in- 
spired everything  he  could  call  righteousness 
at  all.  To  his  opponents,  it  did  not  so  much 
supplant  as  supplement:  but  for  the  atoning 
death,  indeed,  the  sinner  is  hopeless  ;  but  even 
when  he  has  believed  in  it,  he  has  much  to  do  on 
his  own  account,  much  which  is  not  generated  in 
him  by  the  sense  of  obligation  to  Christ,  but 
must  be  explained  on  other  principles — e.g.  that 
of  the  authority  of  the  Jewish  law.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  enter  into  this  controversy  here, 
but  what  may  fairly  be  insisted  upon  is  the  fact, 
which  is  evident  in  all  the  epistles,  that  under- 
neath the  controversy  St.  Paul  and  his  opponents 
agreed  in  the  common  Christian  interpretation 
of  Christ's  death  as  a  death  in  which  sin  had 
been  so  dealt  with  that  it  no  longer  barred 
fellowship  between  God  and  those  who  believed 
in  Jesus.  This,  again,  should  make  us  slow  to 
reject  anything  on  this  subject  in  St.  Paul  as 
being  merely  Pauline — an  idiosyncrasy  of  the 
individual.  We  must  remember  that  his  great 
argument  against  Judaising  Christians  is  that  they 
are  acting  inconsistently :  they  are  unwittingly 
doing  something  which  contravenes,  not  Paulin- 
ism  but  the  gospel  they  have  already  received  of 
redemption  through  the  death  of  Christ. 

Again, the  perception  of  St.  Paul's  place  in  Chris- 
tian tradition,  and  of  his  debt  to  it,  should  make 
us  slow  to  lay  stress  on  the  development  which 


DEVELOPMENT  IN  ST.  PAUL  115 

has  been  discovered  in  his  writings.  Leaving 
out  the  Pastorals,  Paul  wrote  his  other  epistles 
within  the  space  of  ten  years.  But  he  had  been 
preaching  the  gospel,  in  which  the  death  of 
Christ  had  from  the  beginning  the  place  and 
significance  which  we  have  just  seen,  at  least 
fifteen  years  before  any  of  the  extant  epistles 
were  written.  Is  it  credible  that  he  had  no 
intellectual  life  at  all  for  those  fifteen  years,  and 
that  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  his  brain  began  to 
work  at  high  pressure,  and  continued  to  work  so 
till  the  end  of  his  life?  It  is  true  that  in  the 
epistles  of  the  imprisonment,  as  they  may 
be  conveniently  called — Colossians,  Ephesians, 
Philippians — we  see  the  whole  gospel  in  other 
relations  than  those  in  which  it  is  exhibited  in 
the  epistles  of  the  great  missionary  period — 
Thessalonians,  Corinthians,  Galatians,  Romans. 
But  this  is  something  quite  different  from  a 
development  in  the  gospel  itself;  and  in  point 
of  fact  we  cannot  discover  in  St.  Paul's  interpre- 
tation of  Christ's  death  anything  which  essen- 
tially distinguishes  his  earliest  epistles  from  his 
latest.  To  suppose  that  a  great  expansion  of 
his  thoughts  took  place  between  the  letters  to 
the  Thessalonians  and  those  to  the  Corinthians 
is  to  ignore  at  once  the  chronology,  the  nature  of 
letters,  and  the  nature  of  the  human  mind.  St. 
Paul  tells  us  himself  that  he  came  to  Corinth  de- 
termined to  know  nothing  among  the  Corinthians 


n6  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

but  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified.  But  he 
came  in  that  mood  straight  from  Thessalonica, 
and  in  that  mood  he  wrote  from  Corinth  the 
letters  to  Thessalonica,  in  which,  nevertheless, 
there  is,  as  we  shall  see,  only  a  passing  allusion 
to  Christ's  death.  Nothing  could  demonstrate 
more  clearly  how  entirely  a  matter  of  accident 
it  is — that  is,  how  entirely  it  depends  upon  con- 
ditions which  we  may  or  may  not  have  the 
means  of  discovering — whether  any  particular 
part  of  the  apostle's  whole  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity shall  appear  in  any  given  epistle.  If 
development  might  be  asserted  anywhere,  on 
general  grounds,  it  would  be  in  this  case  and  on 
this  subject ;  there  is  far  more  about  Christ's 
death,  and  far  more  that  is  explicit,  in  the  First 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  than  in  the  first  to  the 
Thessalonians.  Yet  precisely  at  this  point  our 
knowledge  of  St.  Paul's  mind  when  he  reached 
Corinth  (i  Cor.  ii.  i  f),  and  of  the  brief  interval 
which  lay  between  this  and  his  visit  to  Thessa- 
lonica, put  the  idea  of  development  utterly  out  of 
the  question.  As  far  as  the  evidence  goes — the 
evidence  including  St.  Paul's  epistles  on  the  one 
hand,  and  St.  Paul's  admitted  relation  to  the 
doctrinal  and  ritual  tradition  of  Christianity  on  the 
other — the  apostle  had  one  message  on  Christ's 
death  from  first  to  last  of  his  Christian  career.  His 
gospel,  and  it  was  the  only  gospel  he  knew,  was 
always  '  the  Word  of  the  Cross  '  (i  Cor.  i.  i8),  or 


EXPERIENCE  AND  CONTROVERSY     117 

'the  Word  of  reconciliation  '  (2  Cor.  v.  19).  The 
applications  might  be  infinitely  varied,  for,  as 
has  been  already  pointed  out,  everything  was 
involved  in  it,  and  the  whole  of  Christianity  was 
deduced  from  it ;  but  this  is  not  to  say  that  it 
was  in  process  of  evolution  itself. 

There  are  two  other  sets  of  questions  which 
might  be  raised  here,  either  independently  or 
in  relation  to  each  other — the  questions  involved 
in  the  experimental,  and  in  the  controversial  or 
apologetic,  aspects  of  St.  Paul's  theology.  How 
much  of  what  he  tells  us  of  the  death  of  Christ 
is  the  interpretation  of  experience,  and  has 
value  as  such  ?  How  much  is  mere  fencing  with 
opponents,  or  squaring  of  accounts  with  his  own 
old  ways  of  thinking  about  God  and  the  soul, 
but  has  no  value  now,  because  the  conditions  to 
which  it  is  relative  no  longer  exist?  These 
questions,  as  has  been  already  remarked,  are 
not  to  be  discussed  abstractly,  because  taken 
abstractly  the  antitheses  they  present  are  in- 
evitably tainted  with  falsehood.  They  assume 
an  opposition  which  does  not  exist,  and  they 
ignore  the  capacity  of  the  truth  to  serve  a 
variety  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  purposes. 
St.  Paul  could  use  his  gospel,  no  doubt,  in  contro- 
versy and  in  apology,  but  it  was  not  devised  for 
controversial  or  apologetic  ends.  The  truth 
always  has  it  in  itself  to  be  its  own  vindication 
and  defence.     It  can  define  itself  in  all  relations, 


ii8  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

against  all  adversaries ;  but  it  is  not  constituted 
truth,  it  is  only  exhibited  as  truth,  when  it  does 
so.  The  fact  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins — that 
His  death  is  an  atoning  death — is  a  magnificent 
apology  for  the  Cross,  turning  its  shame  into 
glory;  but  it  is  not  philosophy  or  criticism,  it  is 
mere  unintelligence,  to  maintain  that  it  was  in- 
vented or  believed  just  in  order  to  remove  the 
offence  of  the  Cross.  In  St.  Paul  it  is  not  an 
apologetic  or  a  controversial  truth,  or  a  truth 
relative  to  the  exigencies  of  Jewish  prejudice  ; 
it  is  an  independent,  eternal,  divine  truth,  the 
profonndest  truth  of  revelation,  which  for  that 
very  reason  contains  in  it  the  answer  to  all 
religious  questions  whether  of  ancient  or  of 
modern  times.  It  is  so  far  from  being  a  truth 
which  only  a  mind  of  peculiar  antecedents  or 
training  could  apprehend,  that  it  is  of  all  truths 
the  most  universal.  It  was  the  sense  of  it,  in  its 
truth,  that  made  St.  Paul  a  missionary  to  all  men. 
When  he  thought  of  what  it  meant,  it  made  him 
exclaim.  Is  God  a  God  of  Jews  only  ?  (Rom.  iii.  29). 
Is  the  God  who  is  revealed  in  the  death  of  Christ 
for  sin  a  God  who  speaks  a  language  that  only  one 
race  can  understand  ?  Incredible.  The  atoning 
death  of  Christ,  as  a  revelation  of  God,  is  a  thing 
in  itself  so  intelligible,  so  correspondent  to  a 
universal  need,  so  direct  and  universal  in  its 
appeal,  that  it  must  be  the  basis  of  a  universal 
religion.     It  is  so  far  from  being  a  truth  (if  we 


FACT  AND  THEORY  IN  ST.  PAUL      119 

can  speak  of  truth  on  such  terms)  relative  only 
to  one  race,  or  one  upbringing,  or  one  age,  or 
one  set  of  prejudices,  that  it  is  the  one  truth 
which  for  all  races  and  in  all  ages  can  never 
admit  of  any  qualification.  In  itself  true,  it  can 
be  used  as  a  weapon,  but  it  was  no  necessity  of 
conflict  which  fashioned  it.  It  is  the  very  heart 
of  revelation  itself. 

The  same  attitude  of  mind  to  the  Pauline 
teaching  which  would  discount  some  of  it  as 
controversial  or  apologetic,  as  opposed  to  experi- 
mental or  absolute,  is  seen  in  the  disposition  to 
distinguish  in  that  teaching,  as  the  expression  is, 
fact  from  theory.  In  all  probability  this  also  is 
a  distinction  which  it  will  not  repay  us  to  discuss 
in  vacuo :  everything  depends  on  the  kind  of  fact 
which  we  are  supposed  to  be  theorising.  The 
higher  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  reality  the  more 
evanescent  becomes  the  distinction  between  the 
thing  'itself  and  the  theory  of  it.  A  fact  like 
the  one  with  which  we  are  here  concerned,  a 
fact  in  which  the  character  of  God  is  revealed, 
and  in  which  an  appeal  is  to  be  made  to  the 
reason,  the  conscience,  the  heart,  the  whole  moral 
being  of  man,  is  a  fact  which  must  be,  and  must 
be  seen  to  be,  full  of  rational,  ethical,  and  emo- 
tional content.  If  instead  of  'theory'  we  use 
an  equivalent  word,  say  '  meaning,'  we  discover 
that  the  absolute  distinction  disappears.  The 
fact  is  not  known  to  us  at  all  unless  it  is  known 


I20  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

in  its  meaning,  in  that  which  constitutes  it  a 
revelation  of  God  and  an  appeal  to  man ;  and  to 
say  that  we  know  it  in  its  meaning  is  to  say  that 
we  know  it  theoretically,  or  in  or  through  a 
theory  of  it.  A  fact  of  which  there  is  no  theory 
is  a  fact  in  which  we  can  see  no  meaning ;  and 
though  we  can  apply  this  distinction  so  far 
when  we  are  speaking  of  physical  facts,  and 
argue  that  it  is  fire  which  burns  and  not  the 
theory  of  heat,  we  cannot  apply  it  at  all  when 
we  are  speaking  of  a  fact  which  has  to  tell  on  us 
in  other  than  physical  ways :  through  conscience, 
through  the  heart,  through  the  intelligence,  and 
therefore  in  a  manner  to  which  the  mind  can 
really  respond.  St.  Paul's  own  words  in  Romans 
V.  II  enable  us  to  illustrate  this.  We  have  re- 
ceived, he  says,  or  taken,  the  reconciliation.  If 
we  could  take  it  physically,  as  we  take  a  doctor's 
prescription,  which  would  tell  on  us  all  the  same 
whatever  our  spiritual  attitude  to  it  might  be, 
then  we  might  distinguish  clearly  between  the 
fact  and  the  theory  of  it,  and  argue  that  as  long 
as  we  accepted  the  fact,  the  theory  was  neither 
here  nor  there ;  but  if  the  fact  with  which  we  are 
dealing  cannot  be  physically  accepted  at  all — 
if  it  addresses  itself  to  a  nature  which  is  higher 
than  physical,  a  nature  of  which  reason,  imagina- 
tion, emotion,  conscience,  are  the  elements,  then 
the  fact  itself  must  be  seen  to  be  one  in  which 
there  is  that  which  appeals  to  all  these  elements ; 


THE  RESURRECTION  IN  ST.  PAUL    ui 

that  is,  to  repeat  the  truth,  it  must  be  an  inter- 
preted fact,  something  in  which  fact  and  theory 
are  indissolubly  one.  The  Cross  must  be  ex- 
hibited in  0  X070?  Tov  a-ravpov,  the  Reconcih'ation 
in  o  X6709  T^9  KaraWajT]^ ;  and  \6yo<!  is  always  a 
rational,  a  theoretical  word.  It  is  much  easier  to 
say  there  is  a  distinction  of  fact  and  theory,  a 
distinction  between  the  testimony  and  the  theo- 
logy of  St.  Paul,  than  to  prove  it ;  it  is  much 
easier  to  imagine  that  one  can  preach  the  gospel 
without  any  theory  of  the  death  of  Christ  than, 
knowing  what  these  words  mean,  to  do  so.  The 
simplest  preacher,  and  the  most  effective,  is 
always  the  most  absolutely  theoretical.  It  is  a 
theory,  a  tremendous  theory,  that  Christ's  death 
is  a  death/or  sin.  But  unless  a  preacher  can  put 
some  interpretation  on  the  death — unless  he  can 
find  a  meaning  in  it  which  is  full  of  appeal — why 
should  he  speak  of  it  at  all  ?  Is  it  the  want  of  a 
theory  that  deprives  it  of  its  place  in  preaching? 
There  is  one  other  subject  to  which  also  it  is 
necessary  to  refer  before  going  into  detail  on  St. 
Paul's  teaching — the  connection  between  Christ's 
death  and  His  resurrection.  The  tradition  of 
Protestant  theology  undoubtedly  tends  to  isolate 
the  death,  and  to  think  of  it  as  a  thing  by  itself, 
apart  from  the  resurrection;  sometin  es,  one  is 
tempted  to  say,  apart  even  from  any  distinct 
conception  of  Him  who  died.  But  we  know  that 
St  Paul  himself  puts  an  extraordinary  emphasis 


122  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

on  the  resurrection.  Sometimes  it  is  co-ordinated 
with  the  death.  *  If  we  believe  that  Jesus  died 
and  rose  again,'  he  writes  to  the  Thessalonians, 
including  in  this  the  whole  of  the  Christian  faith 
(i  Thess.  iv.  14).  '  He  was  delivered  for  our 
offences,  and  raised  again  for  our  justification,' 
he  says  to  the  Romans,  making  the  resurrection 
as  essential  as  the  death  (Rom.  iv.  25).  It  is 
the  same  with  the  summary  of  fundamental 
truths,  which  constituted  the  gospel  as  he 
preached  it  at  Corinth,  and  which  has  been  re- 
peatedly referred  to  already :  '  first  of  all  that 
Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  that  He  was  buried,  and  that  He  rose 
again  the  third  day  according  to  the  Scriptures' 
(i  Cor.  XV.  3  f.).  But  there  are  passages  in  which 
he  gives  a  more  exclusive  emphasis  to  the  resur- 
rection. Thus  in  Rom.  x.  9  he  writes :  *  If  thou 
shalt  confess  with  thy  mouth  that  Jesus  is  Lord, 
and  believe  in  thy  heart  that  God  raised  Him 
from  the  dead,  thou  shalt  be  saved';  and  in 
I  Cor.  XV.  17:  'If  Christ  is  not  risen,  your  faith 
is  vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins.'  It  is  possible, 
however,  to  do  full  justice  to  all  such  expressions 
without  qualifying  in  the  slightest  the  promi- 
nence given  in  St.  Paul  to  Jesus  Christ  as  cruci- 
fied. It  was  the  appearance  of  the  Risen  One 
to  St.  Paul  which  made  him  a  Christian.  What 
was  revealed  to  him  on  the  way  to  Damascus  was 
that  the  Crucified  One  was  Son  of  God,  and  the 


LOVE  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST'S  DEATH     las 

gospel  that  He  preached  afterwards  was  that  of 
the  Son  of  God  crucified.  There  can  be  no  sal- 
vation from  sin  unless  there  is  a  living  Saviour : 
this  explains  the  emphasis  laid  by  the  apostle  on 
the  resurrection.  But  the  Living  One  can  only 
be  a  Saviour  because  He  has  died  :  this  explains 
the  emphasis  laid  on  the  Cross.  The  Christian 
believes  in  a  living  Lord,  or  he  could  not  believe 
at  all ;  but  he  believes  in  a  living  Lord  who  died 
an  atoning  death,  for  no  other  can  hold  the  faith 
of  a  soul  under  the  doom  of  sin. 

The  importance  of  St.  Paul's  teaching,  and  the 
fact  that  dissent  from  any  specifically  New  Testa- 
ment interpretation  of  Christ's  death  usually 
begins  with  it,  may  justify  these  preliminary 
observations  ;  we  now  go  on  to  notice  more  pre- 
cisely what  the  apostle  does  teach.  What  then,  let 
us  ask,  are  the  relations  in  which  St.  Paul  defines 
the  death  of  Christ?  What  are  the  realities 
with  which  he  connects  it,  so  that  in  these  con- 
nections it  becomes  an  intelligible  thing — not  a 
brute  fact,  like  the  facts  of  physics,  while  their 
laws  are  as  yet  unknown,  but  a  significant, 
rational,  ethical,  appealing  fact,  which  has  a 
meaning,  and  can  act  not  as  a  cause  but  as  a 
motive?  In  other  words,  what  is  the  doctrinal 
construction  of  this  fact  in  virtue  of  which  St.  Paul 
can  preach  it  to  man  as  a  gospel  ? 

(i)  To  begin  with,  he  defines  it  by  relation  to 


124  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

the  love  of  God.  The  death  of  Christ  is  an  illus- 
tration or  rather  a  demonstration  of  that  love. 
It  is  a  demonstration  of  it  which  can  never 
be  surpassed.  There  are  great,  though  rare 
examples  of  love  among  men,  but  nothing  which 
could  give  any  suggestion  of  this.  '  Scarcely  for 
a  righteous  man  will  one  die;  for  the  good  man 
possibly  one  might  dare  even  death :  but  God 
commends  His  love  to  us  in  that  while  we  were 
yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us  '  (Rom.  v.  7  f.).  We 
shall  return  to  this,  and  to  St.  Paul's  inferences 
from  it,  when  the  passage  in  Romans  comes  before 
us;  but  meanwhile  we  should  notice  that  the  inter- 
pretation of  Christ's  death  through  the  love  of 
God  is  fundamental  in  St.  Paul.  In  whatever 
other  relations  he  may  define  it,  wc  must  assume, 
unless  the  contrary  can  be  proved,  that  they  are 
consistent  with  this.  It  is  the  commonest  of  all 
objections  to  the  propitiatory  doctrine  of  the 
death  of  Christ  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  the 
love  of  God ;  and  not  only  amateur,  but  profes- 
sional theologians  of  all  grades  have  rejected  St. 
Paul's  doctrine  of  propitiation  as  inconsistent 
with  Jesus'  teaching  on  the  love  of  the  P'ather; 
but  if  a  mind  like  St.  Paul  teaches  both  things 
— if  he  makes  the  death  of  Christ  in  its  pro- 
pitiatory character  the  supreme  demonstration 
of  the  Father's  love — is  there  not  an  immense 
probability  that  there  is  misunderstanding  some- 
where?    It  may  be  a  modern,  it  is  certainly  not 


LOVE  OF  CHRIST  IN  HIS  DEATH     125 

a  Pauline  idea,  that  a  death  for  sins,  with  a  view 
to  their  forgiveness,  is  inconsistent  with  God's 
love.  Whatever  the  process,  St.  Paul  related  that 
death  to  God's  love  as  the  supreme  proof  of  it 

(2)  Further,  the  apostle  defines  Christ's  death 
by  relation  to  the  love  of  Christ.  '  The  Son  of 
God  loved  me,'  he  says,  *  and  gave  Himself  for 
me '  (Gal.  ii.  20).  '  The  love  of  Christ  constraineth 
us,  because  we  thus  judge, that  one  died  for  all* 
(i  Cor.  V.  14).  '  Walk  in  love,  as  Christ  also  loved 
us,  and  gave  Himself  for  us  an  offering  and  a 
sacrifice  to  God  for  a  sweet-smelling  savour' 
(Eph.  V.  2).  '  Christ  loved  the  church,  and  gave 
Himself  for  it,  that  He  might  sanctify  it  to  Him- 
self (Eph.  V.  25).  Christ  is  not  an  instrument, 
but  the  agent,  of  the  Father  in  all  that  He  does. 
The  motive  in  which  God  acts  is  the  motive  in 
which  He  acts:  the  Father  and  the  Son  are  at 
one  in  the  work  of  man's  salvation.  It  is  this 
which  is  expressed  when  the  work  of  Christ  is 
described,  as  it  is  in  Phil.  ii.  8  and  Rom.  v.  19, 
as  obedience — obedience  unto  death,  and  that 
the  death  of  the  Cross.  The  obedience  is  con- 
ceived as  obedience  to  the  loving  will  of  the 
Father  to  save  men — that  is,  it  is  obedience  in 
the  vocation  of  Redeemer,  which  involves  death 
for  sin.  It  is  not  obedience  merely  in  the  sense 
of  doing  the  will  of  God  as  other  men  are  called 
to  do  it,  keeping  God's  commandments ;  it  is 
obedience,  in  this  unique  and  incommunicable 


126  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

yet  moral  calling,  to  be  at  the  cost  of  life  the 
Saviour  of  the  world  from  sin.  Hence  it  is  in 
the  obedience  of  Christ  to  the  Father  that  the 
great  demonstration  of  His  love  to  men  is  given 
— '  He  loved  me,'  as  the  apostle  says, '  and  gave 
Himself  for  me.'  In  His  obedience,  in  which  He 
makes  His  great  sacrifice,  Christ  is  fulfilling  the 
will  of  God  ;  and  the  response  which  He  evokes 
by  His  death  is  a  response  toward  God.  It  is 
at  this  point,  in  the  last  resort,  that  we  become 
convinced  of  the  deity  of  Christ.  It  is  a  work 
of  God  which  He  is  working,  and  the  soul  that 
is  won  for  it  is  won  for  God  in  Him. 

C3)  The  relation  of  Christ's  death  to  the  love 
of  God  and  of  Christ  is  its  fundamental  relation 
on  one  side ;  on  the  other  side,  St.  Paul  relates 
it  essentially  to  sin.  It  is  a  death  for  sin,  what- 
ever else  may  be  said  of  it.  '  First  of  all,  Christ 
died  for  our  sins.'  It  was  sin  which  made  death, 
and  not  something  else,  necessary  as  a  demon- 
stration of  God's  love  and  Christ's.  Why  was 
this  so?  The  answer  of  the  apostle  is  that  it 
was  so  because  sin  had  involved  us  in  death, 
and  there  was  no  possibility  of  Christ's  deal- 
ing with  sin  effectually  except  by  taking  our 
responsibility  in  it  on  himself — that  is,  except  by 
dying  for  it.  Of  course  it  is  assumed  in  this  that 
there  is  an  ethical  connection  of  some  kind 
between  death  and  sin,  and  that  such  a  con- 
nection of  words  as, '  The  wages  of  sin  is  death,' 


CONNECTION  OF  DEATH  AND  SIN     127 

(Rom.  vi.  23)  really  has  meaning.  No  doubt 
this  has  been  denied.  Death,  it  is  argued,  is 
the  debt  of  nature,  not  the  wages  of  sin ;  it 
has  no  moral  character  at  all.  The  idea  of 
moral  liability  to  death,  when  you  look  at  the 
universality  of  death  quite  apart  from  moral 
considerations,  is  a  piece  of  pure  mythology.  In 
spite  of  the  assurance  with  which  this  argument 
is  put  forward  it  is  not  difficult  to  dissent  from  it. 
What  it  really  does  is  to  treat  man  abstractly, 
as  if  he  were  no  more  than  a  physical  being ; 
whereas,  if  we  are  to  have  either  religion  or 
morality  preserved  in  the  world,  it  is  essential 
to  maintain  that  he  is  more.  The  argument 
is  one  of  the  numberless  class  which  proves 
nothing,  because  it  proves  too  much.  It  is 
part  of  a  vaster  argument  which  would  deny 
at  the  same  time  the  spiritual  nature  and  the 
immortality  of  man.  But  while  it  is  right  to 
say  that  death  comes  physically,  that  through 
disease,  or  accident,  or  violence,  or  mere  physical 
exhaustion,  it  subdues  to  itself  everything  that 
lives,  this  does  not  touch  the  prc/founder  truth 
with  which  St.  Paul  is  dealing,  that  death 
comes  from  God,  and  that  it  comes  in  man  to 
a  being  who  is  under  law  to  Him.  Man  is  not 
like  a  plant  or  an  animal,  nor  is  death  to  him 
what  it  is  at  the  lower  levels  of  life.  Man  has 
a  moral  nature  in  which  there  is  a  reflection 
of  the   holy  law  of  God,   and   everything  that 


138  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

befalls  him,  including  death  itself,  must  be  in- 
terpreted in  relation  to  that  nature.  Conscience, 
quickened  by  the  law  of  God,  has  to  look  at  death, 
and  to  become  alive,  not  to  its  physical  ante- 
cedents, but  to  its  divine  meaning.  What  is  Goefs 
voice  in  death  to  a  spiritual  being?  It  is  what  the 
apostle  represents  it — death  is  the  wages  of  sin.^ 
It  is  that  in  which  the  divine  judgment  on  sin 
comes  home  to  the  conscience.  The  connection 
between  the  two  things  is  real,  though  it  is  not 
physical ;  and  because  it  is  what  it  is — because 
death  by  God's  ordinance  has  in  the  conscience 
of  sinful  men  the  tremendous  significance  which 
it  does  have — because  it  is  a  power  by  which 
they  are  all  their  lifetime  held  in  bondage — be- 
cause it  is  the  expression  of  God's  implacable  and 
final  opposition  to  evil — He  who  came  to  bear 
our  sin  must  also  die  our  death.  Death  is  the 
word  which  sums  up  the  whole  liability  of  man 
in  relation  to  sin,  and  therefore  when  Christ 
came  to  give  Himself  for  our  sins  He  did  it  by 
dying.  It  does  not  occur  to  St.  Paul  to  ask  how 
Christ  could  die  the  death  which  is  the  wages  of 
sin,  any  more  than  it  occurred  to  St.  Peter  (see 
p,  99)  to  ask  how  He  could  bear  the  sins  of  others. 
If  any  one  had  argued  that  the  death  which 
Jesus  died,  since  it  had  not  the  shadow  of  a  bad 

*  Compare  Kihier,  p.  399.  lo  Empfindung,  Mythut,  Bild, 
Religion  und  Betrachtung  itt  der  Tod,  wie  wir  SUnder  Um 
•terben,  der  Prediger  der  Verantwortlichkeit  gebliebea 


CONNECTION  OF  DEATH  AND  SIN     129 

conscience  cast  upon  it,  was  not  the  death  which 
is  the  wages  of  sin,  can  we  not  conceive  him  ask- 
ing, '  What  death,  then,  was  it  ?  Is  there  any- 
other?  The  death  He  died  was  the  only  death 
we  know;  it  was  death  in  all  that  tragic  reality 
that  we  see  at  Calvary  ;  and  the  sinlessness  of 
Jesus — when  we  take  His  love  along  with  it — 
may  have  been  so  far  from  making  it  impossible 
for  Him  to  know  and  feel  it  as  all  that  it  was, 
that  it  actually  enabled  him  to  realise  its  awful 
character  as  no  sinful  soul  had  ever  done  or 
could  do.  Instead  of  saying,  He  could  not  die 
the  death  which  is  the  wages  of  sin,  it  may  be 
far  truer  to  say.  None  but  He  could.'  * 

It  may  not  be  amiss  here  to  point  out  that 
analysis  of  the  term  '  death '  as  it  is  used  by  St. 
Paul  almost  invariably  misleads.  According  to 
M.  Mdn^goz,*  the  apostle's  doctrine  of  the  ex- 
piation of  sin  by  death  is  fatally  vitiated  by  the 
ambiguity  of  the  term.  Paul  confounds  in  it 
two  distinct  things  :  (i)  death  as  F an^antissement 
cowplet  et  d^finitif;  (2)  death  as  la  peine  de  mort, 
le  decks.  If  we  take  the  word  in  the  first  sense, 
Christ  did  not  die,  for  He  was  raised  again,  and 
therefore  there  is  no  expiation.  If  we  take  it  in 
the  second  sense,  there  was  no  need  that  He 
should  die,  for  we  can  all  expiate  our  own  sins 
by  dying  ourselves.     This  kind  of  penetration 

^  Compare  Kahler,  Zur  Lehrt  von  der  Ven&knungt  397  (L 
*  Im  Picki  tl  la  Ridempiion^  p.  258  f. 

I 


130  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

is  hardly  to  be  taken  seriously.  When  Paul 
spoke  of  Christ's  death  as  a  death  for  sin,  he 
had  not  a  definition  in  his  mind,  whether 
r aneantissenunt  complet  et  d^finitif,  or  la  pevte  de 
mort;  he  had  the  awful  fact  of  the  crucifixion, 
with  everything,  physical  and  spiritual,  which 
made  it  real ;  that  was  the  bearing  of  sin  and 
expiation  of  it,  whether  it  answered  to  any 
one's  abstract  definition  or  not.  The  apostle 
would  not  have  abandoned  his  gospel  because 
some  one  demonstrated  d.  priori,  by  means  of 
definitions,  that  expiation  of  sin  by  death  was 
either  (i)  impossible,  or  (2)  unnecessary.  He 
lived  in  another  region.  With  these  general 
remarks  on  the  different  relations  in  which  St. 
Paul  defines  the  death  of  Christ,  we  may  now 
proceed  to  consider  the  teaching  of  the  epistles 
in  detail,  keeping  as  far  as  possible  to  chrono- 
logical order. 

(I.)  The  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians  do  not 
yield  us  much.  The  only  indisputable  passage 
is  I.  V.  10 :  '  God  did  not  appoint  us  to  wrath, 
but  to  the  obtaining  of  salvation  through  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  died  for  us,  that  whether 
we  wake  or  sleep  we  should  live  together  with 
Him.'  If  the  question  is  raised,  What  did 
Christ  do  for  us  with  a  view  to  our  salvation, 
St.  Paul  has  only  one  answer :  He  died  for  us. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  epistles  like  the 
language  of  the  hymn  : — 


FIRST  EPISTLE  TO  THESSALONIANS     131 

*  For  us  despised,  for  us  He  bore 
His  weary  thirst  and  hungered  sore  ; 
For  us,  temptations  sharp  He  knew, 
For  us  the  Tempter  overthrew.' 

The  only  thing  He  is  said  to  have  done  for 
us  is  to  die,  and  this  He  did,  because  it  was 
determined  for  Him  by  sin.  The  relation  of  sin 
and  death  in  the  nature  of  things  made  it  bind- 
ing on  Him  to  die  if  He  was  to  annul  sin.  The 
purpose  here  assigned  to  Christ's  death,  that 
whether  we  wake  or  sleep  we  should  live  to- 
gether with  Him,  suggests  that  His  power  to 
redeem  is  dependent  on  His  making  all  our 
experiences  His  own.  If  we  are  to  be  His  in 
death  and  life,  then  He  must  take  our  death 
and  life  to  Himself.  If  what  is  His  is  to  be- 
come ours,  it  is  only  on  the  condition  that  what 
is  ours  He  first  makes  His.  There  is  the  same 
suggestion  in  Romans  xiv.  9:  *To  this  end 
Christ  died  and  lived,  that  He  might  be  Lord 
both  of  dead  and  living.'  Not  as  though  death 
made  Him  Lord  of  the  dead,  and  rising  again,  of 
the  living;  but  as  One  to  whom  no  human 
experience  is  alien.  He  is  qualified  to  be  Lord 
of  men  through  all.  The  particular  character 
elsewhere  assigned  to  death  as  the  doom  of  sin 
is  not  here  mentioned,  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  it  was  not  felt.  On  the  contrary,  we  should 
rather  hold  that  St.  Paul  could  never  allude  to 
the  death  of  Christ  without  becoming  conscious 


134  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

of  its  propitiatory  character  and  of  what  gave  It 
that  character.  The  word  would  fill  of  its  own 
accord  with  the  meaning  which  it  bears  when  he 
says,  First  of  all,  Christ  died  for  our  sins. 

(II.)  When  we  pass  to  the  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  we  have  much  fuller  references  to  the 
subject.  For  one  thing,  its  supreme  importance 
is  insisted  on  when  we  find  the  gospel  described 
as  '  the  word  of  the  cross'  (i.  i8),  and  the  apostle's 
endeavours  directed  to  this,  'that  f/te  cross  of 
Christ  may  not  be  made  void '  (i.  17).  It  is 
in  the  same  spirit  that  he  contrasts  the  true 
gospel  with  the  miracles  claimed  by  the  Jews, 
and  the  wisdom  sought  by  the  Greeks :  '  We 
preach  Christ  crucified,  the  power  of  God  and 
the  wisdom  of  God.'  So  again  in  the  second 
chapter  he  reminds  the  Corinthians  how  he 
came  to  Achaia  determined  to  know  nothing 
among  them  but  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified : 
his  whole  gospel,  the  testimony  of  God,  as  he 
calls  it,  was  in  that  (ii.  i  f.).  In  other  passages 
he  refers  to  the  death  of  Christ  in  general  terms 
which  suggest  the  cost  at  which  man's  redemp- 
tion was  achieved.  Twice  over,  in  chapters  vi. 
20,  and  vii.  23,  he  writes,  Ye  were  bought  with 
a  price ;  making  it  in  the  first  instance  the  basis 
of  an  exhortation  to  glorify  God  in  the  nature 
He  had  made  His  own  at  so  dear  a  rate  ;  and  in 
the  other,  of  an  exhortation  to  assume  all  the 
responsibilities  of  that  freedom  for  which  they 


BOUGHT  WITH  A  PRICE  133 

had  been  so  dearly  ransomed,  and  not  to  be- 
come servants  of  men,  i.e.  not  to  let  the  con- 
ventions, or  judgments,  or  consciences  of  others 
invade  a  responsibility  which  had  obligations  to 
the  Redeemer  alone.  It  may  not  be  possible  to 
work  out  the  figure  of  a  price,  which  is  found 
in  these  passages,  in  detail ;  we  may  not  be 
able  to  say  what  it  answered  to,  who  got  it, 
how  it  was  fixed,  and  so  on.  But  what  we 
may  legitimately  insist  upon  is  the  idea  that 
the  work  of  man's  salvation  was  a  costly  work, 
and  that  the  cost,  however  we  are  to  construe  it, 
is  represented  by  the  death  of  Christ.  Ye  were 
bougiit  with  a  price,  means.  Ye  were  not  bought 
for  nothing.  Salvation  is  not  a  thing  which  can 
be  assumed,  or  taken  for  granted ;  it  is  not  an 
easy  thing,  about  which  no  diflSculty  can  possibly 
be  raised  by  any  one  who  has  any  idea  of  the 
goodness  of  God.  The  point  of  view  of  the 
New  Testament  is  the  very  opposite.  Salvation 
is  a  difficult  thing,  an  incredible  thing,  an  im- 
possible thing ;  it  is  the  miracle  of  miracles  that 
such  a  thing  should  be  ;  the  wonder  of  it  never 
ceases,  and  it  nowhere  finds  a  more  thrilling  ex- 
pression than  in  St.  Paul's  words.  Ye  were  bought 
with  a  price.  St.  Paul  will  show  us  in  other  ways 
why  cost  was  necessary,  and  the  cost  of  Christ's 
death  in  particular  ;  but  it  is  a  great  step  in  initia- 
tion into  the  gospel  he  preached  to  see  that  cost, 
as  Bushnell  puts  it  in  his  book  on  Forgiveness  and 


134  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

LaWy  had  to  be  made,  and  actually  was  made, 
that  men  might  be  redeemed  for  God. 

There  is  another  passage  in  the  First  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians  on  which  I  should  lay  greater 
stress  than  is  usually  done  in  connection  with 
the  apostle's  teaching  on  Christ's  death :  it  is 
that  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  chapters  in 
which  St.  Paul  speaks  of  the  Sacraments. 
He  is  concerned  about  the  recrudescence  of 
immorality  among  the  saints,  about  the  pre- 
sumptuous carelessness  with  which  they  go  into 
temptation,  relying  apparently  on  their  sacra- 
mental privileges  to  ensure  them  against  peril. 
He  points  out  that  God's  ancient  people  had  had 
similar  privileges,  indeed  identical  ones,  yet  had 
fallen  in  the  wilderness  owing  to  their  sins.  You 
are  baptized  into  Christ  ?  Yes,  and  all  our  fathers 
were  baptized  into  Moses  in  the  cloud  and  in  the 
sea ;  they  formed  one  body  with  him,  and  were 
as  sure  of  God's  favour.  You  have  supernatural 
meat  and  supernatural  drink  in  the  Holy  Supper, 
meat  and  drink  which  have  the  assurance  of  a 
divine  and  immortal  life  in  them?  So  had  they 
in  the  manna  and  the  water  from  the  rock.  They 
all  ate  the  same  supernatural  meat  as  you  do, 
they  all  drank  the  same  supernatural  drink  ;  they 
drank  of  a  supernatural  rock  which  followed 
them,  and  the  rock  was  Christ.^     It  is  obvious 

'  Ifhave  rendered  Tvtvixa.TiKhv  here  '  supernatural '  rather  than 
'spiritual,'  because  it  suggests  better  the  element  of  mysterj,  or 


ST.  PAUL  ON  THE  SACRAMKNTS       135 

from  this  passage  (l  Corinthians  x.  1-4)  as  well 
as  from  the  references  to  baptism  in  i.  13  f,  xii. 
13,  and  from  the  full  explanation  of  the  Supper 
in  xi.  23  ff.,  that  the  Sacraments  had  a  large  place 
in  the  church  at  Corinth,  and  not  only  a  large 
place,  but  one  of  a  significance  which  can  hardly 
be  exaggerated.  And,  as  has  been  pointed  out 
already,  there  is  no  interpretation  of  the  Sacra- 
ments except  by  reference  to  the  death  of  Christ. 
Baptism  has  always  in  view,  as  part  at  least  of 
its  significance,  the  forgiveness  of  sins ;  and  as 
the  rite  which  marks  the  believer's  initiation  into 
the  new  covenant,  it  is  essentially  related  to  the 
act  on  which  the  covenant  is  based,  namely,  that 
which  Paul  delivered  first  of  all  to  this  Church, 
that  Christ  died  for  our  sins.  When,  in  another 
epistle,  Paul  argues  that  baptism  into  Christ 
means  baptism  into  His  death,  he  is  not  striking 
out  a  new  thought,  of  a  somewhat  venturesome 
originality,  to  ward  off  a  shrewd  blow  suddenly 
aimed  at  his  gospel ;  he  is  only  bringing  out  what 

rather  of  divineness,  which  all  through  this  passage  is  connected 
with  the  Sacraments.  Baptism  is  not  a  common  washing,  nor  is 
the  Supper  common  meat  and  drink ;  it  is  a  divine  cleansing,  a 
divine  nourishment,  with  which  we  have  to  do  in  these  rites ;  there 
is  a  mysterious  power  of  God  in  them,  which  the  Corinthians  were 
inclined  to  conceive  as  operating  like  a  charm  for  their  protection 
in  situations  of  moral  ambiguity  or  peril.  This  is  so  far  suggested 
to  the  Greek  reader  by  TveifiariKdy,  for  xveC/ia  and  its  derivatives 
always  involve  a  reference  to  God ;  but  as  it  is  not  necessarily 
suggested  to  the  English  reader  by  '  spiritual,'  I  have  ventured  on 
the  oiher  rendering.  The  indefinitenessof  '  supernatural'  isratbei 
•n  advantage  in  the  context  than  a  drawback. 


136  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

was  all  along  to  him  the  essential  meaning  of 
this  ordinance.  The  Supper,  again,  of  which  he 
speaks  at  length  in  i  Corinthians  x.  and  xi., 
bears  as  unmistakable  reference  to  Christ's 
death.  The  cup  is  specially  defined  as  the  new 
covenant  in  His  blood,  and  the  apostle  sums  up 
the  meaning  of  the  Sacrament  in  the  words,  As 
often  as  ye  eat  this  bread  and  drink  the  cup,  ye 
publish  the  Lord's  death  till  He  come  (i  Cor.  xi. 
26).  In  all  probability  KarayyeWere  (publish) 
implies  that  the  Sacrament  was  accompanied 
by  words  in  which  its  significance  was  expressed  ; 
it  was  not  only  a  picture  in  which  the  death  of 
Christ  was  represented  and  its  worth  to  the 
Church  declared ;  there  was  an  articulate  con- 
fession of  what  it  was,  and  of  what  the  Church 
owed  to  it.  If  we  compare  the  sixth  chapter  of 
Romans  with  the  tenth  and  eleventh  of  ist  Cor- 
inthians, it  seems  obvious  that  modern  Christians 
try  to  draw  a  broader  line  of  distinction  between 
the  Sacraments  than  really  exists.  Partly,  no 
doubt,  this  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  in  our  times 
baptism  is  usually  that  of  infants,  while  the 
Supper  is  partaken  of  only  by  adults,  whereas, 
in  New  Testament  times,  the  significance  of 
both  was  defined  in  relation  to  conscious  faith. 
But  it  would  not  be  easy  to  show,  from  St, 
Paul's  epistles,  that  in  contents  and  meaning, 
in  the  blessings  which  they  represented  and 
•vhich  were  conveyed  through  them,  there  is  any 


ST.  PAUL  ON  THE  SACRAMENTS       137 

very  great  distinction.  The  truth  seems  rather 
to  be  that  both  the  Sacraments  are  forms  into 
which  we  may  put  as  much  of  the  gospel 
as  they  will  carry ;  and  St.  Paul,  for  his  part, 
practically  puts  the  whole  of  his  gospel  into 
each.  If  Baptism  is  relative  to  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins,  so  is  the  Supper.  If  Baptism  is 
relative  to  the  unity  of  the  Church,  so  is  the 
Supper.  We  are  not  only  baptized  into  one 
body(i  Cor.  xii.  13),  but  because  there  is  one 
bread,  we,  many  as  we  are  who  partake  of  it,  are 
one  body  (i  Cor.  x.  17).  If  Baptism  is  relative 
to  a  new  life  in  Christ  (Rom.  vi.  4  f),  in  the 
Supper  Christ  Himself  is  the  meat  and  drink  by 
which  the  new  life  is  sustained  (i  Cor.  x.  3  f.). 
And  in  both  the  Sacraments,  the  Christ  to  whom 
we  enter  into  relation  is  Christ  who  died  ;  we  are 
baptized  into  His  death  in  the  one,  we  proclaim 
His  death  till  the  end  of  time  in  the  other.  I 
repeat,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  the 
significance  of  these  facts,  though  it  is  possible 
enough  to  ignore  them  altogether.  The  super- 
stition that  has  gathered  round  the  Sacraments, 
and  that  has  tempted  even  good  Christians  to 
speak  of  abolishing  them,  probably  showed  itself 
at  a  very  early  date ;  there  are  unmistakable 
traces  of  it  in  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
itself,  ^specially  in  the  tenth  chapter  ;  but  instead 
of  lessening,  it  increases  our  assurance  of  the 
place  which  these  ordinances  had  in  Christiam**"  • 


138  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

from  the  beginning.  And  although  the  rationale 
of  the  connection  between  the  death  of  Christ 
and  the  blessings  of  the  gospel  is  not  elucidated 
by  them,  it  is  presupposed  in  them.  In  ordi- 
nances with  which  every  Christian  was  familiar, 
and  without  which  a  place  in  the  Christian  com- 
munity could  neither  be  acquired  nor  retained, 
the  death  of  Christ  was  perpetually  kept  before 
all  as  a  death  essentially  related  in  some  way  to 
the  forgiveness  of  sins. 

Not  much  light  falls  on  our  subject  from  the 
one  sacrificial  allusion  to  Christ's  death  in  i  Cor- 
inthians V.  7 :  *  For  our  passover  also  has  been 
sacrificed — Christ.'  No  doubt  to  irda'xa  here,  as 
in  Mark  xiv.  12,  means  the  paschal  lamb,  and 
the  apostle  is  thinking  of  Christ  as  the  Lamb  of 
God,  by  whose  sacrifice  the  Church  is  called  and 
bound  to  a  life  of  holiness.  It  is  because  of  this 
sacrifice  that  he  says,  *  Let  us  therefore  keep 
festival,  not  in  old  leaven,  nor  in  leaven  of  malice 
and  wickedness,  but  in  the  unleavened  bread  of 
sincerity  and  truth.'  It  is  implied  here  certainly 
that  there  is  an  entire  incongruity  between  a  life 
of  sin,  and  a  life  determined  by  a  relation  to  the 
sacrificial  death  of  Christ ;  but  we  could  not,  from 
this  passage  alone,  make  out  what,  according  to 
St.  Paul,  was  the  ground  of  this  incongruity.  It 
would  be  wrong,  in  a  passage  with  this  simply 
allusive  reference  to  the  passover,  to  urge  the 
significance   of   the    lamb   in   the   twelfth    and 


SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  CORINTHIANS     139 

thirteenth  chapters  of  Exodus,  and  to  apply 
this  to  interpret  the  death  of  Christ.  There  is 
no  indication  that  the  apostle  himself  carried  out 
his  thought  on  these  lines. 

We  now  come  to  the  Second  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  which  is  here  of  supreme  import- 
ance. In  one  point  of  view,  it  is  a  defence  of 
St.  Paul's  apostleship,  and  of  his  work  in  the 
apostolic  office.  The  defence  rests  mainly  on 
two  pillars ;  first,  his  comprehension  of  the 
gospel ;  and  second,  his  success  in  preaching 
it.  There  are  one  or  two  references  in  the  earlier 
chapters  to  the  sufferings  and  even  the  death  of 
Jesus  in  an  aspect  with  which  we  are  not  here 
specially  concerned.  Thus  in  i.  5,  Paul  says : 
'  The  sufferings  of  Christ  abound  toward  us ' ; 
meaning  by  this  that  in  his  apostolic  work  he 
suffered  abundantly  just  as  Christ  had  suffered  ; 
the  weariness  and  peril  from  which  Jesus  could 
not  escape  haunted  him  too ;  the  Lord's  experi- 
ence was  continued  in  him.  Similarly,  in  iv.  10, 
when  he  speaks  of  always  bearing  about  in  the 
body  rrjv  veKpaxriv  tov  'Irjaov — the  dying  of  Jesus 
— he  means  that  his  work  and  its  attendant 
sufferings  are  killing  him  as  they  killed  his 
Master;  every  day  he  feels  his  strength  lessen, 
and  the  outer  man  perish.  But  it  is  not  in  these 
passages  that  the  great  revelation  is  made  of 
what  Christ's  death  is  in  relation  to  sin.  It  is  in 
chapter  v.,  in  which  he  is  defending  his  conduct 


140  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

in  the  apostolic  office  against  the  assaults  of  his 
enemies.  Extravagant  or  controlled,  the  motive 
of  his  conduct  was  always  the  same.  '  The  love 
of  Christ  constrains  us,'  he  writes,  *  because  we 
thus  judge,  that  one  died  for  all  (so  then  all  died), 
and  died  for  all  that  they  who  live  should  no 
longer  live  for  themselves,  but  for  Him  who  died 
for  them,  and  rose  again.'  The  importance  of 
this  passage  is  that  it  connects  the  two  relations 
in  which  St.  Paul  is  in  the  habit  of  defining 
Christ's  death — its  relation  to  the  love  in  which 
it  originated,  and  to  the  sin  with  which  it  dealt ; 
and  it  shows  us  how  to  construe  these  two  things 
in  relation  to  each  other.  Christ's  death,  we  are 
enabled  to  see,  was  a  loving  death,  so  far  as  men 
are  concerned,  only  because  in  that  death  He 
took  the  responsibilities  of  men  upon  Himself: 
deny  that,  and  it  will  be  impossible  to  show  any 
ground  on  which  the  death  can  be  construed  as 
a  loving  death  at  all.  It  is  necessary  to  examine 
the  passage  in  detail. 

The  love  of  Christ,  the  apostle  argues,  con- 
strains us,  because  we  thus  judge — i.e.^  because 
we  put  a  certain  interpretation  on  His  death. 
Apart  from  this  interpretation,  the  death  of 
Christ  has  no  constraining  power.  Here  we  find 
in  St.  Paul  himself  a  confirmation  of  what  has 
been  said  above  about  the  distinction  of  fact  and 
theory.  It  is  in  virtue  of  a  certain  theory  of 
Christ's  death  that  the  fact   has   its   power   to 


ONE  DIED  FOR  ALL  141 

constrain  the  apostle.  If  it  were  not  susceptible 
of  such  an  interpretation,  if  this  theory  were 
inapplicable  to  it,  it  would  not  constrain  any 
more.  What,  then,  is  the  theory?  It  is  that  one 
died  for  all  ;  virep  iravrav  means  that  the  interest 
of  all  was  aimed  at  and  involved  in  the  death  of  the 
one.  How  it  was  involved  in  it  these  words  alone 
do  not  enable  us  to  say.  They  do  not  by  them- 
selves show  the  connection  between  Christ's  death 
and  the  world's  good.  But  St.  Paul  draws  an  im- 
mediate inference  from  them  :  *so  then  all  died.' 
In  one  sense,  it  is  irrelevant  and  interrupts  his 
argument.  He  puts  it  into  a  hurried  parenthesis, 
and  then  eagerly  resumes  what  it  had  suspended. 
'  One  died  for  all  (so  then  all  died),  and  died  for 
all  that  they  who  live  should  no  longer  live  to 
themselves,  but  to  Him  who  died  for  them  and 
rose  again.'  Yet  it  is  in  this  immediate  inference 
— that  the  death  of  Christ  for  all  involved  the 
death  of  all — that  the  missing  link  is  found.  It 
is  because  Christ's  death  has  this  inclusive  char- 
acter— because,  as  Athanasius  puts  it,  '  the  death 
of  all  was  fulfilled  in  the  Lord's  body' — that  His 
death  has  in  it  a  power  which  puts  constraint  on 
men  to  live  for  Him.^  I  cannot  agree  with  Mr. 
Lidgett  when  he  says  that  the  words  can  only  be 
understood  in  connection  with  the  apostle's  de- 
claration elsewhere,  that  he  has  been  'crucified 

*  D4  ItuamatiotUt  c.  x&.  §.  5* 


14*  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

with  Christ'  ^  That  declaration  is  a  declaration 
of  Christian  experience,  the  fruit  of  faith ;  but 
what  the  apostle  is  dealing  with  here  is  something 
antecedent  to  Christian  experience,  something  by 
which  all  such  experience  is  to  be  generated,  and 
which,  therefore,  is  in  no  sense  identical  with  it. 
The  problem  before  us  is  to  discover  what  it  is 
in  the  death  of  Christ  which  gives  it  its  power  to 
generate  such  experience,  to  exercise  on  human 
hearts  the  constraining  influence  of  which  the 
apostle  speaks ;  and  this  is  precisely  what  we 
discover  in  the  inferential  clause :  *  so  then  all 
died.'  This  clause  puts  as  plainly  as  it  can  be 
put  the  idea  that  His  death  was  equivalent  to  the 
death  of  all ;  in  other  words,  it  was  the  death  of 
all  men  which  was  died  by  Him.  Were  this  not 
so.  His  death  would  be  nothing  to  them.  It 
is  beside  the  mark  to  say,  as  Mr.  Lidgett  does, 
that  His  death  is  died  by  them  rather  than  theirs 
by  Him  ;  the  very  point  of  the  apostle's  argument 
may  be  said  to  be  that  in  order  that  they  may 
die  His  death  He  must  first  die  theirs.  Our 
dying  His  death  is  not,  in  the  New  Testament,  a 
thing  which  we  achieve  on  our  own  initiative,  or 
out  of  our  own  resources ;  it  is  the  fruit  of  His 
dying  ours.  If  it  is  our  death  that  Christ  died  on 
the  Cross,  there  is  in  the  Cross  the  constraint  of 
an  infinite  love ;  but  if  it  is  not  our  death  at  all 

'J.    S.    Lidgclt,    The  Spirilual  FrituipU  of  the   Atonement , 
p.  39- 


MEANING  OF  RECONCILIATION         143 

— if  it  is  not  our  burden  and  doom  that  He  has 
taken  to  Himself  there — then  what  is  it  to  us? 
His  death  can  put  the  constraint  of  love  upon  all 
men,  only  when  it  is  thus  judged — that  the  death 
of  all  was  died  by  Him.  When  the  apostle  pro- 
ceeds to  state  the  purpose  of  Christ's  death  for 
all — '  that  they  which  live  should  not  henceforth 
live  to  themselves,  but  to  Him  who  died  for  them 
and  rose  again ' — he  does  it  at  the  psychological 
and  moral  level  suggested  by  the  words:  The 
love  of  Christ  constrains  us.  He  who  has  done  so 
tremendous  a  thing  as  to  take  our  death  to  Him- 
self has  established  a  claim  upon  our  life.  We 
are  not  in  the  sphere  of  mystical  union,  of  dying 
with  Christ  and  living  with  Him ;  but  in  that  of 
love  transcendently  shown,  and  of  gratitude  pro- 
foundly felt.^  But  it  will  not  be  easy  for  any  one 
to  be  grateful  for  Christ's  death,  especially  with  a 
gratitude  which  will  acknowledge  that  his  very 
life  is  Christ's,  unless  he  reads  the  Cross  in  the 
sense  that  Christ  there  made  the  death  of  all  men 
His  own. 

It  is  in  this  same  passage  that  St.  Paul  gives 
the  fullest  explanation  of  what  he  means  by 
reconciliation  (KaTaWayfj),  and  an  examination 
of  this  idea  will  also  illustrate  his  teaching  on  the 
death  of  Christ.  Where  reconciliation  is  spoken 
of  in  St.  Paul,  the  subject  is  always  God,  and  the 

*  The  way  in  which  theologians  in  love  with  the  '  mystical  union ' 
depreciate  gratitude  must  be  very  astonishing  to  psychologists. 


144  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

object  is  always  man.  The  work  of  reconciling 
is  one  in  which  the  initiative  is  taken  by  Godi 
and  the  cost  borne  by  Him  ;  men  are  reconciled 
in  the  passive,  or  allow  themselves  to  be  recon- 
ciled, or  receive  the  reconciliation.  We  never 
read  that  God  has  been  reconciled.  God  does 
the  work  of  reconciliation  in  or  through  Christ, 
and  especially  through  His  death.  He  was 
engaged,  in  Christ,  in  reconciling  the  world — 
or  rather,  nothing  less  than  a  world — to  Himself 
(2  Cor.  V.  19).  He  reconciled  us  to  Himself 
through  Christ  (v.  20).  When  we  were  enemies, 
we  were  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  His 
Son  (Rom.  v.  10).  Men  who  once  were  alienated, 
and  enemies  in  mind  through  wicked  works,  yet 
now  He  has  reconciled  in  the  body  of  His  flesh 
through  death  (Col.  i.  21  f.).  It  is  very  unfor- 
tunate that  the  English  word  reconcile  (and  also 
the  German  vers'ohnen^  which  is  usually  taken  as 
its  equivalent)  diverge  seriously,  though  in  a  way 
of  which  it  is  easy  to  be  unconscious,  from  the 
Greek  KaraWdaa-ecv.  We  cannot  say  in  English, 
God  reconciled  us  to  Himself,  without  conceiving 
the  persons  referred  to  as  being  actually  at  peace 
with  God,  as  having  laid  aside  all  fear,  distrust, 
and  love  of  evil,  and  entered,  in  point  of  fact, 
into  relations  of  peace  and  friendship  with  God. 
But  KaraWda-creiv,  as  describing  the  work  of  God, 
or  KaraWcvyjj,  as  describing  its  immediate  result, 
do  not  necessarily  carry  us  so  far.    The  work  of 


MEANING  OF  RECONCILIATION       145 

reconciliation,  in  the  sense  of  the  New  Testament, 
is  a  work  which  is  finished,  and  which  we  must 
conceive  to  be  finished,  before  the  gospel  is 
preached.  It  is  the  good  tidings  of  the  Gospel, 
with  which  the  evangelists  go  forth,  that  God  has 
wrought  in  Christ  a  worlj  of  reconciliation  which 
avails  for  no  less  than  the  world,  and  of  which 
the  whole  world  may  have  the  benefit.  The 
summons  of  the  evangelist  is — '  Receive  the  recon- 
ciliation ;  consent  that  it  become  effective  in  your 
case.'  The  work  of  reconciliation  is  not  a  work 
wrought  upon  the  souls  of  men,  though  it  is  a 
work  wrought  in  their  interests,  and  bearing  so 
directly  upon  them  that  we  can  say  God  has 
reconciled  the  world  to  Himself;  it  is  a  work — 
as  Cromwell  said  of  the  covenant — outside  of  us, 
in  which  God  so  deals  in  Christ  with  the  sin  of 
the  world,  that  it  shall  no  longer  be  a  barrier 
between  Himself  and  men. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  can  understand 
how  many  modern  theologians,  in  their  use  of 
the  word  reconciliation,  come  to  argue  as  it  were 
at  cross  purposes  with  the  apostle.  Writers 
like  Kaftan,^  for  example,  who  do  not  think  of 

'  Kaftan  holds  that  nothing  is  to  be  called  Erlosung  or  Ver- 
sohnung  (redemption  or  reconciliation)  unless  as  men  are  actually 
liberated  and  reconciled  ;  Erlosung  and  Versohnung  are  to  be 
understood,  as  the  Reformers  rightly  saw  (?),  as  Wirkungen  Gottes 
in  und  an  den  Gidubigen.  But  he  overlooks  the  fact  that  what- 
ever is  to  liberate  or  reconcile  men  must  have  qualities  or  virtues 
in  it  which,  in  view  of  their  normal  effect,  whether  that  effect  be 
in  auy  given  case  achieved  or  not,  can  be  called  reconciling  oi 

K 


146  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

the  work  of  Christ  as  anything  else  than  the 
work  which  Christ  is  perpetually  doing  in  winning 
the  souls  of  men  for  God,  and  who  describe  this 
as  the  work  of  reconciliation,  though  they  may 
seem  to  the  practical  modern  intelligence  to  be 
keeping  close  to  reality,  are  doing  all  that  can 
be  done  to  make  the  Pauline,  or  rather  the  New 
Testament  point  of  view,  bewildering  to  a  modern 
reader.  Reconciliation  is  not  something  which 
is  doing ;  it  is  something  which  is  done.  No 
doubt  there  is  a  work  of  Christ  which  is  in 
process,  but  it  has  as  its  basis  a  finished  work 
of  Christ ;  it  is  in  virtue  of  something  already 
consummated  on  His  cross  that  Christ  is  able 
to  make  the  appeal  to  us  which  He  does,  and  to 
win  the  response  in  which  we  receive  the  recon- 
ciliation. A  finished  work  of  Christ  and  an 
objective  atonement — a  KaTaXKa<yrj  in  the  New 
Testament  sense — are  synonymous  terms  ;  the 
one  means  exactly  the  same  as  the  other ;  and 
it  seems  to  me  self-evident,  as  I  think  it  did  to 
St.  Paul,  that  unless  we  can  preach  a  finished 
work  of  Christ  in  relation  to  sin,  a  KaraWay^  or 
reconciliation  or  peace  which  has  been  achieved 
independently  of  us,  at  an  infinite  cost,  and  to 
which  we  are  called  in  a  word  or  ministry  of 
reconciliation,  we  have  no  real  gospel  for  sinful 

liberative  ;  and  that  the  determination  of  these  qualities  or  virtues 
—that  is,  as  he  calls  it,  an  '  objective  Hcilskhre ' — is  not  only 
legitimate  but  essential  in  the  interpretation  of  the  work  of  Christ 
See  his  DogwuUik,  19  52  £ 


CHRIST  MADE  SIN  FOR  US  147 

men  at  all.  It  is  not  in  something  Christ  would 
fain  do  that  we  see  His  love,  it  is  in  something 
He  has  already  done ;  nay,  it  is  only  through 
what  He  has  already  done  that  we  can  form  any 
idea,  or  come  to  any  conviction,  of  what  He 
would  fain  do.  He  has  died  for  us  all,  and  by 
that  death — not  His  own,  properly  speaking,  but 
the  death  of  the  sinful  race  taken  to  Himself — 
He  has  so  demonstrated  the  reality  and  infinity 
of  the  love  of  God  to  the  sinful,  as  to  make  it 
possible  for  apostles  and  evangelists  to  preach 
peace  to  all  men  through  Him. 

In  the  passage  with  which  we  are  dealing,  St 
Paul  appends  to  the  apostolic  message,  abruptly 
and  without  any  conjunction,  the  statement  of 
the  great  truth  of  Christ's  finished  work  which 
underlies  it.  '  On  Christ's  behalf,  then,  we  are 
ambassadors,  as  though  God  were  entreating  you 
through  us  :  we  beg  6f  you  on  Christ's  behalf, 
Be  reconciled  to  God.  Him  that  knew  no  sin 
He  made  to  be  sin  for  us,  that  we  might  become 
God's  righteousness  in  Him'  (2  Cor.  v.  20  f). 
The  want  of  a  conjunction  here  does  not  destroy 
the  connection  ;  it  only  makes  the  appeal  of  the 
writer  more  solemn  and  thrilling.  There  need 
not  be  any  misunderstanding  as  to  what  is  meant 
by  the  words.  Him  that  knew  no  sin  He  made  to 
be  sin  for  us.  To  every  one  who  has  noticed  that 
St  Paul  constantly  defines  Christ's  death,  and 
nothing  but  His  death,  by  relation  to  sin,  and 


T48  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

who  can  recall  similar  passages  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  or  to  the  Romans,  to  which  we 
shall  presently  come,  it  is  obvious  that  these 
tremendous  words  cover  precisely  the  same  mean- 
ing as  '  Fie  died  for  our  sins.'  When  the  sinless 
one,  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  Father,  died 
on  the  Cross  the  death  of  all,  the  death  in  which 
sin  had  involved  all,  then,  and  in  that  sense,  God 
made  Him  to  be  sin  for  all.  But  what  is  meant 
by  saying,  'in  that  sense'?  It  means,  'in  the 
sense  of  His  death.'  And  what  that  means  is 
not  to  be  answered  d  priori,  or  on  dogmatic 
grounds.  It  is  to  be  answered  out  of  the  Gospel 
history,  out  of  the  experience  of  our  Lord  in  the 
Garden  and  on  the  Cross.  It  is  there  we  see 
what  death  meant  for  Him  ;  what  it  meant  for 
Him  to  make  our  sin,  and  the  death  in  which 
God's  judgment  comes  upon  sin.  His  own  ;  and 
it  is  the  love  which,  in  obedience  to  the  Father, 
did  not  shrink  from  that  for  us  which  gives 
power  and  urgency  to  the  appeal  of  the  Gospel. 
We  ought  to  feel  that  moralising  objections  here 
are  beside  the  mark,  and  that  it  is  not  for  sinful 
men,  who  do  not  know  what  love  is,  to  tell 
beforehand  whether,  or  how  far,  the  love  of 
God  can  take  upon  itself  the  burden  and  re- 
sponsibility of  the  world's  sin  ;  or  if  it  does  so, 
In  what  way  its  reality  shall  be  made  good. 
The  premiss  of  the  Gospel  is  that  we  cannot 
bear  that  responsibility  ourselves ;  if  we  arc  left 


CHRIST  MADE  SIN  FOR  US  149 

alone  with  it,  it  will  crush  us  to  perdition.  The 
message  of  the  gospel,  as  it  is  here  presented,  is 
that  Christ  has  borne  it  for  us  ;  if  we  deny  that 
He  can  do  so,  is  it  not  tantamount  to  denying  the 
very  possibility  of  a  gospel?  Mysterious  and 
awful  as  the  thought  is,  it  is  the  key  to  the  whole 
of  the  New  Testament,  that  Christ  bore  our  sins. 
Of  this,  God  made  Him  to  be  sin  for  us  is 
merely  another  equivalent ;  it  means  neither  more 
nor  less.  The  end  contemplated — that  we  might 
become  the  righteousness  of  God  in  Him — is 
here  stated  religiously  or  theologically.  Christ 
takes  our  place  in  death,  and  in  so  doing  is 
identified  with  the  world's  sin  ;  the  end  in  view 
in  this  is  that  we  should  take  His  place  in  life, 
and  in  so  doing  stand  justified  in  God's  sight. 
By  what  psychological  process  this  change  in 
our  position  is  mediated  St.  Paul  does  not  here 
tell.  What  he  does  is  to  give  a  religious  equi- 
valent for  the  ethical  and  psychological  repre- 
sentation of  ver.  14 :  '  He  died  for  all,  that  they 
which  live  should  not  live  unto  themselves,  but 
to  Him  who  died  for  them  and  rose  again.'  It 
took  no  less  than  His  death  for  them  to  bring 
into  their  life  a  motive  of  such  creative  and 
recreative  power ;  and  it  takes  no  less  than  His 
being  made  sin  for  them  to  open  for  them  the 
possibility  of  becoming  God's .  righteousness  in 
Him.  To  say  so  is  not  to  bring  different 
things   into   an   artificial   correspondence.     The 


ISO  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

two  statements  are  but  the  ethical  and  the 
theological  representation  of  one  and  the  same 
reality ;  and  it  confirms  our  interpretation  of 
the  passage,  and  our  conviction  of  the  coherence 
of  the  apostolic  gospel,  that  under  various  and 
independent  aspects  we  are  continually  coming 
on  the  same  facts  in  the  same  relation  to  each 
other. 

(III.)  The  closing  verses  of  the  fifth  chapter 
of  2nd  Corinthians  may  fairly  be  called  the  locus 
classiciis  on  the  death  of  Christ  in  St.  Paul's 
writings.  Yet  in  proceeding  to  the  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians  we  are  introduced  to  a  document 
which,  more  exclusively  than  any  other  in  the 
New  Testament,  deals  with  this  subject,  and  its 
significance.  Even  in  the  salutation,  in  which 
the  apostle  wishes  his  readers  grace  and  peace 
from  God  the  Father  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
he  expands  the  Saviour's  name  by  adding,  in  a 
way  unexampled  in  such  a  connection  elsewhere, 
'  who  gave  Himself  for  our  sins  that  He  might 
redeem  us  from  the  present  world  with  all  its  ills, 
according  to  the  will  of  our  God  and  Father* 
(i.  4).  Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the 
vehement  words  in  which  he  anathematises  man 
or  angel  who  shall  preach  a  different  gospel.* 
At  the  end  of  the  second  chapter  he  puts  again, 
in  the  strongest  possible  form,  his  conviction 
that  Christianity,  the  new  and  true  religion,  if 
*  See  above,  p.  iia 


CHRISTIANITY  ALL  IN  THE  CROSS      151 

a  thing  complete  in  itself,  exclusive  of  every- 
thing else,  incapable  of  compromise  or  of  supple- 
ment, and  that  it  owes  this  completeness,  and  if 
we  choose  to  call  it  so,  this  intolerance,  to  the 
supreme  significance  and  power  which  belong  in 
it  to  the  death  of  Christ.  *  I  have  been  crucified 
with  Christ ;  my  life  is  no  longer  mine,  it  is 
Christ  who  lives  in  me ;  the  life  I  now  live  in 
flesh  I  live  in  faith,  faith  in  the  Son  of  God  who 
loved  me  and  gave  Himself  up  for  me'  (ii.  20). 
The  whole  of  the  Christian  religion  lies  in  that. 
The  whole  of  Christian  life  is  a  response  to  the 
love  exhibited  in  the  death  of  the  Son  of  God 
for  men.  We  cannot  point  to  anything  and  say, 
'  See,  that  is  Christian,  that  is  good  in  God's 
sight,'  without  saying  at  the  same  time,  'That 
has  been  generated  in  the  life  of  man  by  the 
tremendous  appeal  of  the  cross.'  To  say  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  righteousness  which  has 
another  source  is,  according  to  St.  Paul,  to  frus- 
trate the  grace  of  God  ;  it  is  to  compromise  the 
Christian  religion  in  its  very  principle  ;  and  to 
such  a  sin  St.  Paul  will  be  no  party.  If  righteous- 
ness is  by  law,  as  he  sums  it  up  in  one  of  his 
passionate  and  decisive  words,  then  Christ  died 
for  nothing  (ii.  21).  St.  Paul  knew  by  experience 
and  by  revelation — he  knew  by  every  way  in 
which  knowledge  can  find,  and  win,  and  hold  the 
mind — that  Christ  did  not  die  for  nothing,  nor 
for  something  merely,  but  for  everything.     He 


1 5*  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

knew  that  all  he  was,  or  could  ever  become  as 
a  Christian,  came  out  of  the  Cross.  This  is  why 
he  could  say  to  the  Corinthians,  '  I  determined 
to  know  nothing  among  you  save  Jesus  Christ 
and  Him  crucified'  (r  Cor.  ii.  2);  and  why  he 
repeats  it  in  other  words  to  the  Galatians,  *  God 
forbid  that  I  should  glory  save  in  the  Cross  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  through  which  the  world 
is  crucified  to  me  and  I  to  the  world '  (Gal. 
vi.  14). 

Put  positively,  then,  we  may  say  that  the  aim 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  is  to  show  that 
all  Christianity  is  contained  in  the  Cross ;  the 
Cross  is  the  generative  principle  of  everything 
Christian  in  the  life  of  man.  Put  negatively, 
we  may  say  its  aim  is  to  show  that  law,  and 
especially,  as  it  happened,  the  ritual  side  of  the 
Jewish  law,  contributes  nothing  to  that  life. 
Now  St.  Paul,  it  might  be  argued,  had  come  to 
know  this  experimentally,  and  independently  of 
any  theory.  When  it  had  dawned  on  his  mind 
what  the  Cross  of  Christ  was,  when  he  saw  what 
it  signified  as  a  revelation  of  God  and  His  love, 
everything  else  in  the  universe  faded  from  his 
view.  Newman  speaks,  in  a  familiar  passage  of 
the  Apologia^  of  resting  in  '  the  thought  of  two, 
and  two  only,  absolute  and  luminously  self- 
evident  beings,  myself  and  my  Creator*;  in  the 
relations  and  interaction  of  these  two  his  religion 
consisted.     A    religion   so   generated,  though  it 


CHRISTIANITY  ALL  IN  THE  CROSS      153 

may  be  very  real  and  powerful,  is,  of  couree, 
something  far  poorer  than  Christianity ;  yet  in 
a  somewhat  similar  way  we  might  say  of  St 
Paul  that  for  him  the  universe  of  religion  con- 
sisted of  the  soul  and  the  Son  of  God  giving 
Himself  up  for  it ;  all  that  God  meant  for  him, 
all  that  he  could  describe  as  revelation,  all  that 
begot  within  him  what  was  at  once  religion, 
life,  and  salvation,  was  included  in  this  act  of 
Christ.  No  law,  however  venerable  ;  no  customs, 
however  dear  to  a  patriotic  heart ;  no  traditions 
of  men,  however  respectable  in  effect  or  intention, 
could  enter  into  competition  with  this.  It  was 
dishonouring  to  Christ,  it  was  an  annulling  of 
the  grace  of  God,  to  mention  them  alongside 
of  it.  To  do  so  was  to  betray  a  radical  mis- 
apprehension of  Christ's  death,  such  as  made  it 
for  those  who  so  misapprehended  it  entirely 
ineffective.  *  Ye  are  severed  from  Christ,'  St. 
Paul  cries, '  ye  who  would  be  justified  by  law ; 
ye  are  banished  from  grace '  (v.  4). 

But  though  St.  Paul  had  learned  this  by  ex- 
perience, he  does  not,  in  point  of  fact,  treat  this 
subject  of  law  empirically.  He  does  not  content 
himself  with  saying,  *  I  tried  the  law  till  I  was 
worn  out,  and  it  did  nothing  for  me ;  I  made  an 
exhaustive  series  of  experiments  with  it,  result- 
less  experiments,  and  so  I  am  done  with  it; 
through  the  law  I  have  died  to  the  law  (ii.  19); 
it  has  itself  taught  me,  by  experience  under  it, 


154  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

that  it  is  not  the  way  to  life,  and  so  it  is  to  me 
now  as  though  it  were  not.'  He  does  not  content 
himself  with  giving  this  as  his  experience  of  the 
law ;  nor  does  he,  on  the  other  hand,  content 
himself  with  giving  us  simply  and  empirically  his 
experience  of  Christ.  He  does  not  say,  *  Christ 
has  done  everything  for  me  and  in  me.  The 
constraint  of  His  love  is  the  whole  explanation 
of  my  whole  being  as  a  Christian.  By  the  grace 
of  God,  and  by  nothing  else,  I  am  what  I  am, 
and  therefore  the  law  is  nothing  to  me :  I  am  so 
far  from  finding  myself  obliged  to  acknowledge 
its  claims  still,  that  it  is  my  deepest  conviction 
that  to  acknowledge  its  claims  at  all  is  to 
frustrate  the  grace  of  God,  to  make  void  the 
Cross  of  Christ.'  Probably  if  he  had  written 
thus — and  no  doubt  he  might  have  written  thus 
— it  would  have  seemed  attractive  and  convincing 
to  many  who  have  misgivings  about  what  he 
actually  has  written.  But  St.  Paul  could  not, 
and  did  not  remain  at  this  empirical  standpoint. 
He  has  a  theory  again — or  let  us  say  an  under- 
.standing — of  the  relations  of  Christ  and  law, 
which  enables  him  to  justify  and  comprehend 
his  experience.  But  for  the  truths  of  which  this 
theory  is  the  vehicle,  the  death  of  Christ  would 
not  be  what  it  is,  or  exercise  over  the  soul  the 
power  which  it  does.  It  is  some  dim  sense  of 
these  truths,  truths  which  the  theory  does  not 
import   but  only  unfolds,  which   in  every  case 


CHRIST  UNDER  THE  LAW  155 

gives  the  death  of  Christ  its  constraining  influ- 
ence upon  sinful  men.  What, then,  is  the  theory? 
Briefly,  it  is  summed  up  in  the  words,  Christ 
under  the  law.  This  is  the  expression  used  in 
Galatians  iv.  4,  and  its  indefiniteness,  in  this  form, 
makes  it  seem  unobjectionable  enough.  It  signi- 
fies that  when  He  came  into  the  world  Christ  came 
under  the  same  conditions  as  other  men  :  all  that 
a  Jew  meant  when  he  said  '  Law '  had  significance 
for  him ;  the  divine  institutions  of  Israel  had  a 
divine  authority  which  existed  for  him  as  well  as 
for  others.  To  say  that  the  Son  of  God  was  made 
under  the  law  would  thus  mean  that  He  had  the 
same  moral  problem  in  His  life  as  other  men  ;  that 
He  identified  Himself  with  them  in  the  spiritual 
conditions  under  which  they  lived ;  that  the 
incarnation  was  a  moral  reality  and  not  a  mere 
show.  But  it  is  certain  that  this  is  not  all  that 
St.  Paul  meant;  and  to  the  writer,  at  least,  it  is  not 
certain  that  St.  Paul  ever  had  this  as  a  distinct  and 
separate  object  of  thought  present  to  his  mind  at 
all.  What  he  really  means  by  '  Christ  under  the 
law'  comes  out  in  its  full  meaning  in  chapter  iii. 
13  :  Christ  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law 
by  becoming  curse  for  us.  *  Under  the  law,'  in 
short,  is  an  ambiguous  expression,  and  it  is 
necessary  to  be  clear  as  to  which  of  the  possible 
interpretations  it  bears  in  this  case.  In  relation 
to  man  in  general,  the  law  expresses  the  will  of 
God.     It  tells  him  what  he  must  do  to  please 


156  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

God.  It  is  imperative,  and  nothing  more.  We 
may  say,  of  course,  that  Chiist  was  under  the 
law  in  this  sense ;  it  is  self-evident.  But  as  has 
just  been  hinted,  it  is  doubtful  whether  St.  Paul 
ever  thought  of  this  by  itself.  To  be  under  the 
law  in  this  sense  did  not  to  him  at  least  yield  the 
explanation  of  Christ's  redeeming  power.  In 
the  mere  fact  that  Christ  came  to  keep  the  law 
which  was  binding  on  all,  there  was  no  such 
demonstration  of  love  to  sinners  as  was  sufficient, 
of  itself,  to  make  them  new  creatures.  But  this 
is  not  the  only  sense  which  can  be  assigned  to 
the  words,  '  under  the  law.'  The  law  has  not 
only  a  relation  to  man  as  such,  in  which  it  ex- 
presses the  will  of  God  ;  it  has  a  relation  to  men 
as  sinners,  in  which  it  expresses  the  condemna- 
tion of  God.  Now  Christ  is  our  Redeemer, 
according  to  the  apostle,  because  He  was  made 
under  the  law  in  this  sense.  He  not  only  be- 
came matiy  bound  to  obedience — it  is  not  easy 
to  say  where  the  omnipotent  loving  constraint 
is  to  be  discovered  in  this ;  but  He  became  curse 
for  us.  He  made  our  doom  His  own.  He  took 
on  Him  not  only  the  calling  of  a  man,  but  our 
responsibility  as  sinful  men  ;  it  is  in  this  that 
His  work  as  Redeemer  lies,  for  it  is  in  this  that 
the  measure,  or  rather  the  immensity,  of  His 
love  is  seen.  To  say,  '  He  became  a  curse  for 
us/  is  exactly  the  same  as  to  say, '  He  was  made 
sin  for  us,'  or  '  He  died  for  us ' ;  but  it  is  infinitely 


THE  OBEDIENCE  OF  A  REDEEMER     157 

more  than  to  say,  '  He  was  made  man  for  us ' — 
or  even  man  bound  to  obedience  to  the  law — a 
proposition  to  which  there  is  nothing  analogous 
in  the  New  Testament.  The  conception  of 
obedience,  as  applicable  to  the  work  of  Christ, 
will  recur  in  other  connections ;  here  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  if  we  wish  to  put  the  whole  work  of 
Christ  under  that  heading,  we  must  remember 
that  what  we  have  to  do  with  is  not  the  ordinary 
obedience  of  men,  but  the  obedience  of  a  Re- 
deemer. Christ  had  an  ethical  vocation,  as  St. 
Paul  reminds  us  in  the  very  first  reference  to  His 
death  in  this  epistle  :  '  He  gave  Himself  for  our 
sins,  to  deliver  us  from  the  present  evil  world, 
according  to  the  will  of  our  God  and  Father ' ;  but 
his  vocation,  in  carrying  out  that  redeeming  will, 
was  a  unique  one ;  and,  according  to  St.  Paul,  its 
uniqueness  consisted  in  this,  that  one  who  knew 
no  sin  had,  in  obedience  to  the  Father,  to  take 
on  Him  the  responsibility,  the  doom,  the  curse, 
the  death  of  the  sinful.  And  if  any  one  says 
that  this  was  morally  impossible,  may  we  not 
ask  again.  What  is  the  alternative  ?  Is  it  not 
that  the  sinful  should  be  left  alone  with  their 
responsibility,  doom,  curse,  and  death  ?  And  is 
not  that  to  say  that  redemption  is  impossible? 
The  obedience  of  the  Redeemer  transcends 
morality,  if  we  will;  it  is  something  to  which 
morality  is  unequal ;  from  the  point  of  view  c  £ 
ordinary  ethics,  it  is  a  miracle.     But  it  is  the 


158  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

very  function  of  the  Redeemer  to  do  the  thing 
which  it  is  impossible  for  sinful  men  to  do  for 
themselves  or  for  each  other ;  and  St.  Paul's 
justification  of  the  miracle  is  that  it  creates  all 
the  genuine  and  victorious  morality — all  the 
keeping  of  God's  commandments  in  love — which 
the  world  can  show. 

There  have  been  many  attempts,  if  not  to 
evade  this  line  of  argument,  and  this  connection 
of  ideas,  then  to  find  something  quite  different 
in  Galatians,  which  shall  dispense  with  the 
necessity  of  considering  it.  Thus  it  is  argued 
that  St.  Paul  in  the  whole  epistle  is  dealing  with 
Jews,  or  with  people  who  wanted  to  be  Jews, 
and  with  their  relation  to  the  ceremonial  law — a 
situation  which  no  longer  has  reality  for  us.  But 
this  is  hardly  the  case.  St.  Paul  nowhere  draws 
any  distinction  in  the  law  between  ceremonial 
and  moral ;  the  law  for  him  is  one,  and  it  is  the 
law  of  God.  It  is  owing  to  accidental  circum- 
stances that  the  ceremonial  aspect  of  it  is  more 
prominent  in  this  epistle,  as  the  ethical  aspect  is 
in  Romans.  But  we  shall  find  the  same  line  of 
argument  repeated  in  Romans,  where  it  is  the 
moral  law  which  is  at  stake  ;  and  when  the 
apostle  tells  us  that  through  the  law  he  has  died 
to  the  law  (Gal.  ii.  16),  or  that  we  have  died  to 
the  law  through  the  body  of  Christ  (Rom.  vii.  4), 
or  that  we  are  not  under  law  but  under  grace 
(Rom.  vi.  14),  he  has  not  the  moral  law  any  less 


LAW  UNIVERSALISED  IN  ST.  PAUL     159 

in  view  than  the  ceremonial.  He  means  that 
nothing  in  the  Christian  life  is  explained  by 
anything  statutory,  and  that  everything  in  it  is 
explained  by  the  inspiring  power  of  that  death 
in  which  Christ  made  all  our  responsibilities  to 
the  law  His  own.  There  is  a  sense,  of  course,  in 
which  the  law  is  Jewish,  but  St.  Paul  had  general- 
ised it  in  order  to  be  able  to  preach  the  Gospel 
to  the  Gentiles ;  ^  he  had  found  analogues  of  it  in 
every  society  and  in  every  conscience ;  in  his 
evangelistic  preaching  he  defined  all  sin  by  re- 
lation to  it;  in  the  utmost  extent  of  meaning 
that  could  be  given  to  the  term,  *  law '  had 
significance  for  all  men  ;  and  it  was  a  gospel  for 
all  men  that  St.  Paul  preached  when  he  declared 
tlia*-  Christ  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the 
law  by  becoming  curse  for  us.  No  doubt  when 
he  wrote  the  words,  'Christ  redeemed  us  from 
the  curse  of  the  law  by  becoming  curse  for  us,' 
he  was  thinking,  as  his  antecedents  and  circum- 
stances compelled  him  to  think,  of  himself  and 
his  fellow-countrymen,  who  had  known  so  well 
the  yoke  of  bondage  ;  that  is,  it  is  an  exegetical 
result  that  ij/ita?  means  us  Jews ;  but  that  does 
not  alter  the  fact  that  the  universal  gospel 
underlies  the  expression,  and  is  conveyed  by  it ; 
it  only  means  that  here  a  definite  application  is 
made  of  that  gospel  in  a  relevant  case. 
The    same     considerations     dispose    of    the 

•  See  Expositor,  March  1901,  p.  176  ft 


i6o  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

attempts  that  are  made  to  evacuate  the  *  curse ' 
of  meaning  by  identifying  it  with  the  '  Cross.' 
No  doubt  Paul  appeals  in  support  of  his  idea 
that  Christ  became  a  curse  for  us  to  the  text  in 
Deuteronomy  xxi.  23,  which  he  quotes  in  the 
form  'Cursed  is  every  one  who  hangs  upon  a 
tree.'  No  doubt  he  avoids  applying  to  Christ 
the  precise  words  of  the  text,  Accursed  of  God 
(K€KaTr]pafjLevo<;  viro  rov  deov  (LXX.)  Q\fl^K"np/>p). 
So  do  we,  because  the  words  would  be  false  and 
misleading.  Christ  hung  on  the  tree  in  obedience 
to  the  Father's  will,  fulfilling  the  purpose  of  the 
Father's  love,  doing  a  work  with  which  the  Father 
was  well  pleased,  and  on  account  of  which  the 
Father  highly  exalted  Him  ;  hence  to  describe 
Him  as  accursed  of  God  would  be  absurd. 
It  is  not  because  St.  Paul  shrinks  from  his 
own  logic  that  he  says  He  became  a  curse  for 
us,  instead  of  saying  He  became  a  curse  of  God, 
or  accursed  of  God,  for  us  ;  it  is  because  he  is 
speaking  in  truth  and  soberness.  Death  is  the 
curse  of  the  law.  It  is  the  experience  in  which 
the  final  repulsion  of  evil  by  God  is  decisively 
expressed ;  and  Christ  died.  In  His  death 
everything  was  made  His  that  sin  had  made 
ours — everything  in  sin  except  its  sinfulness. 
There  is  no  essential  significance  in  the  cruci- 
fixion, as  if  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  say 
that  Christ  became  a  curse  for  us,  if  He  had  died 
in  any  other  way.     The  curse,  in  truth,  is  only 


CHRIST  MADE  A  CURSE  FOR  US      i6i 

one  of  St.  Paul's  synonyms  for  the  death  of  Christ 
— one  which  is  relative,  no  doubt,  to  the  concep- 
tion of  Christ  as  *  under  the  law,'  but  which  for  its 
meaning  is  entirely  independent  of  the  passage 
in  Deuteronomy.  The  New  Testament  has 
many  analogies  to  this  use  of  the  Old.  Christ 
rode  into  Jerusalem  on  an  ass,  and  declared 
Himself  a  King  in  doing  so,  but  no  one  supposes 
that  His  sovereignty  is  constituted  or  exhausted 
in  this ;  it  is  entirely  independent  of  it,  though 
in  connection  with  a  certain  prophecy  (Zech.  ix.  9) 
it  can  be  identified  with  it.  So  again  He  was 
crucified  between  two  thieves,  and  an  evangelist 
says  that  there  the  Scripture  was  fulfilled — He 
was  numbered  with  transgressors  ;  but  we  know 
that  the  Scripture  was  fulfilled  in  another  and 
profounder  sense,  and  would  have  been  fulfilled 
all  the  same  though  Jesus  had  been  crucified 
alone  (Mark  xv.  28  Rec,  Luke  xxii.  37).  And  so 
also  with  the  Deuteronomic  quotation  in  Gala- 
tians  iii.  13.  The  Old  Testament  here  gave  Paul 
an  expression — an  argumentum,  if  we  will ;  it  did 
not  give  him  his  gospel.  He  had  said  already, 
e.g.  in  2  Corinthians  v.  21,  and  will  say  again  in 
other  forms,  all  he  has  to  say  here :  that  in  His 
death  Christ  was  made  under  the  law,  not  merely 
as  that  which  laid  its  imperative,  but  as  that 
which  laid  its  sentence,  upon  man  ;  that  He  took 
to  Himself  in  His  death  our  responsibility,  our 
doom,  our  curse,  as  sinful  men,  and  not  merely 

L 


i62  THE  DEATH  Of  CHRIST 

our  obligation  to  be  good  men.  And  though  it 
is  Christian,  it  is  not  illogical,  to  avoid  such  an 
expression  as  accursed  of  God.  For  in  so  making 
the  doom  of  men  His  own  in  death  Christ  was 
doing  God's  will. 

The  other  passages  in  Galatians  which  deal 
with  our  subject  bring  to  view  the  ethical  rather 
than  the  theological  import  of  the  death  of 
Christ.  One  occurs  at  chapter  v.  24 :  •  They 
that  are  of  Christ  Jesus  crucified  the  flesh  with 
its  passions  and  lusts.*  Ideally,  we  must  under- 
stand, this  crucifixion  of  the  flesh  is  involved  in 
Christ's  crucifixion;  really,  it  is  effected  by  it. 
Whoever  sees  into  the  secret  of  Calvary — who- 
ever is  initiated  into  the  mystery  of  that  great 
death — is  conscious  that  the  doom  of  sin  is  in  it ; 
to  take  it  as  real,  and  to  stand  in  any  real  rela- 
tion to  it,  is  death  to  the  flesh  with  its  passions 
and  desires.  So  with  the  last  passage  in  the 
epistle  at  which  the  subject  recurs  (vi.  14) : 
'  Never  be  it  mine  to  boast  but  in  the  cross 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  through  which  the 
world  has  been  crucified  to  me,  and  I  to  the 
world.'  Here  the  apostle  reiterates  with  new 
emphasis  at  the  end  of  his  letter  what  he  has 
enforced  from  the  beginning,  that  the  Cross  is 
the  explanation  of  everything  Christian.  Of 
course  it  is  the  Cross  interpreted  as  he  has  in- 
terpreted it;  apart  from  this  interpretation,  which 
•hows  it  to  be  full  of  a   meaning  that  appeals 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS       163 

irresistibly  to  man,  it  can  have  no  rational  or 
moral  influence  at  all.  But  with  this  interpreta- 
tion it  is  the  annihilative  and  the  creative  power 
in  Christianity ;  the  first  commandment  of  the 
new  religion  is  that  we  shall  have  no  God  but 
Him  who  is  fully  and  finally  revealed  there. 

(IV.)  The  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  not  so 
directly  controversial  as  that  to  the  Galatians ; 
there  are  no  personal  references  in  it,  and  no 
temper.  But  the  Gospel  is  defined  in  it  in 
relation  to  law,  in  very  much  the  same  sense  as 
in  Galatians  ;  the  completeness  of  the  Christian 
religion,  its  self-containedness,  its  self-sufficiency, 
the  impossibility  of  combining  it  with  or  supple- 
menting it  from  anything  else,  are  assumed  or 
proved  in  much  the  same  way.  The  question  of 
religion  for  St.  Paul  is,  How  shall  a  man,  a  sinful 
man,  be  righteous  with  God  ?  The  Gospel 
brings  the  answer  to  that  question.  It  is  be- 
cause it  does  so  that  it  is  a  Gospel.  It  tells 
sinful  men  of  a  righteousness  which  is  exactly 
what  they  need.  It  preaches  something  on  the 
c:round  of  which,  sinners  as  they  are,  God  the 
Judge  of  all  can  receive  them — a  righteousness  of 
God,  St.  Paul  calls  it,  naming  it  after  Him  who  is 
its  source,  and  at  the  same  time  characterising  it 
as  divinely  perfect  and  adequate — a  righteous- 
ness of  God  which  is  somehow  identified  with 
Jesus  Christ  (iii.  22  ;  cf.  i  Cor.  i.  30).  In  particular 
it  is  identified  somehow  with  Jesus  Christ  in  His 


i64  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

death  (iii.  25),  and  therefore  in  Romans  as  in 
Galatians  this  death  of  Christ  is  the  source  of  all 
that  is  Christian.  All  Christian  inferences  about 
God  are  deduced  from  it.  Once  we  are  sure  of 
it  and  of  its  meaning,  we  can  afford  a  great  deal 
of  ignorance  in  detail.  We  know  that  it  covers 
everything  and  guarantees  everything  in  which 
we  are  vitally  interested  ;  that  it  disposes  of  the 
past,  creates  the  future,  is  a  security  for  immortal 
life  and  glory  (v.  9  flf.,  viii.  31  ff.).  What,  then,  does 
St.  Paul  say  of  the  righteousness  of  God,  and  of 
the  death  of  Christ  in  relation  to  it  ? 

The  critical  passage  is  that  in  ch,  iii.  21  fif.  To 
give  a  detailed  exegesis  of  it  would  be  to  do  what 
has  been  perhaps  too  often  done  already,  and 
would  raise  questions  to  distract  as  well  as  to  aid 
intelligence.  As  is  well  known,  there  are  two 
principal  difficulties  in  the  passage.  The  one  is 
the  meaning  of  iXaa-r^piov  (propitiation)  in  v.  25. 
The  other  is  that  which  is  raised  by  the  question 
whether  the  righteousness  of  God  has  the  same 
meaning  throughout,  or  whether  it  may  not  have 
in  one  place — say  in  v.  22 — the  half-technical 
sense  which  belongs  to  it  as  a  summary  of  St. 
Paul's  gospel  ;  and  in  another — say  in  v.  26 — 
the  larger  and  more  general  sense  which  might 
belong  to  it  elsewhere  in  Scripture  as  a  synonym 
for  God's  character,  or  at  least  for  one  of  His 
essential  attributes.  Not  that  these  two  principal 
difficulties  are  unrelated  to  each  other:  on  the 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  PROPITIATION     165 

contrary,  they  are  inextricably  intertwined,  and 
cannot  be  discussed  apart.  It  is  an  argument 
for  distinguishing  two  senses  of  BiKaioavvr]  Oeov 
(the  righteousness  of  God)  that  when  we  do  so 
we  are  enabled  to  see  more  clearly  the  meaning 
of  iXa<TTTjpLo<i.  It  is  the  very  function  of  Jesus 
Christ,  set  forth  by  God  as  a  propitiation  in  His 
blood,  to  exhibit  these  two  senses  (which  are 
equally  indispensable,  if  there  is  to  be  a  religion 
for  sinful  men),  in  their  unity  and  cons'^^tency 
with  each  other.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
term  iXaaTijpio<;,  to  say  the  least,  is  relative  to 
some  problem  created  by  sin  for  a  God  who 
would  justify  sinners  ;  and  the  distinction  of  two 
senses  in  which  SiKaioa-vvTj  Oeov  is  used  enables 
us  to  state  this  problem  in  a  definite  form. 

Assuming,  then,  that  both  difficulties  will  come 
up  for  consideration,  there  is  a  certain  convenience 
in  starting  with  the  second — that  which  is  involved 
in  the  use  of  the  expression  '  the  righteousness  of 
God.'  It  is  used  in  vv.  21,  22,  25,  and  26 ;  and 
one  use  of  it  is  implied  in  v.  24  :  'being  justified 
freely  by  His  grace.'  It  seems  to  me  a  strong 
argument  for  the  double  sense  of  this  expression 
that  when  the  apostle  brings  his  argument  to  a 
climax  the  two  senses  have  sifted  themselves  out, 
so  to  speak,  and  stand  distinctly  side  by  side :  the 
end  of  all  God's  action  in  His  redeeming  revelation 
of  Himself  to  men  is  'that  He  may  be  just  Him- 
self, and  justify  him  who  believes  in  Jesus '  (eh  tc 


i66  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

elvai  avTov  hiKaiov  koI  BiKaiovvra  rov  eK  TriVreci)? 
'It/o-oO,  v.  26).  The  first  part  of  this  end — God's 
being  righteous  Himself — might  quite  fairly  be 
spoken  of  as  BiKaioa-vvr)  Oeov  (God's  righteous- 
ness) ;  it  is,  indeed,  what  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances is  meant  by  the  words.  Compare,  for 
example,  the  use  of  them  in  ch.  iii.  5.  But  God's 
appearance  in  the  character  of  6  Bckuimv  (he  who 
justifies)  is  also  the  manifestation  of  a  righteous- 
ness of  God,  and  indeed  of  the  righteousness  of 
God  in  the  sense  in  which  it  constitutes  St.  Paul's 
gospel — a  righteousness  of  God  which  stands  or 
turns  to  the  good  of  the  beHeving  sinner.  Both 
things  are  there :  a  righteousness  which  comes 
from  God  and  is  the  hope  of  the  sinful,  and  God's 
own  righteousness,  or  His  character  in  its  self-con- 
sistency and  inviolability.  In  virtue  of  the  first, 
God  is  6  BiKaiayVf  the  Justifier ;  in  virtue  of  the 
second,  He  is  hiKato^,  Just.  What  St.  Paul  is  con- 
cerned to  bring  out,  and  what  by  means  of  the 
conception  of  Christ  in  His  blood  as  IXaa-rtjpio'i 
(endued  with  propitiatory  power)  he  does  bring 
out,  is  precisely  the  fact  that  both  things  ar^ 
there,  and  there  in  harmony  with  each  other. 
There  can  be  no  gospel  unless  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  a  righteousness  of  God  for  the  ungodly. 
But  just  as  little  can  there  be  any  gospel  unless 
the  integrity  of  God's  character  be  maintained. 
The  problem  of  the  sinful  world,  the  problem  of 
all  religion,  the  problem  of  God  in  dealing  with 
a  sinful  race,  is  how  to  unite  these  two  things 


JUST  AND  THE  JUSTIFIER  167 

The  Christian  answer  to  the  problem  is  given  by 
St.  Paul  in  the  words  :  '  Jesus  Christ  whom  God 
set  forth  a  propitiation  (or,  in  propitiatory  power) 
in  His  blood.'  In  Jesus  Christ  so  set  forth  there 
is  the  manifestation  of  God's  righteousness  in  the 
two  senses,  or,  if  we  prefer  it,  in  the  complex 
sense,  just  referred  to.  Something  is  done  which 
enables  God  to  justify  the  ungodly  who  believe 
in  Jesus,  and  at  the  same  time  to  appear  signally 
and  conspicuously  a  righteous  God.  What  this 
something  is  we  have  still  to  consider ;  but  mean- 
while it  should  be  noted  that  this  interpretation 
of  the  passage  agrees  with  what  we  have  already 
seen — that  justification  of  the  ungodly,  or  forgive- 
ness of  sins,  or  redemption,  or  whatever  we  are 
to  call  it,  is  a  real  problem  for  St.  Paul.  Gospel 
is  the  last  thing  in  the  world  to  be  taken  for 
granted :  before  there  can  be  any  such  thing 
a  problem  of  tremendous  difficulty  has  to  be 
solved,  and  according  to  the  apostle  of  the 
Gentiles  it  has  received  at  God's  hands  a  tre- 
mendous solution. 

Before  entering  into  this,  it  is  only  fair  to  refer 
to  the  interpretations  of  the  passage  which  aim 
at  giving  the  righteousness  of  God  precisely  the 
same  force  all  through.  In  this  case,  of  course,  it 
is  the  technical,  specifically  Pauline  sense  which 
is  preferred  ;  the  SiKaioavvr)  deov  is  to  be  read 
always  as  that  by  which  sinful  man  is  justified. 
This  is  done  by  different  interpreters  with  very 
various  degrees  of  insight. 


i68  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

(l)  There  are  those  who  seem  unconscious  that 
there  is  any  problem,  any  moral  problem,  in  the 
situation  at  all.  The  righteousness  of  God,  they 
argue,  is  essentially  self-imparting;  it 'goes  out' 
and  energises  in  the  world ;  it  takes  hold  of 
human  lives  and  fills  them  with  itself;  it  acts 
on  the  analogy  of  a  physical  force,  like  light 
or  heat,  diffusing  itself  and  radiating  in  every 
direction,  indiscriminately  and  without  limit. 
Legal  religion,  no  doubt,  conceives  of  it  other- 
wise ;  to  legalism,  God's  righteousness  is  a 
negative  attribute,  something  in  which  God,  as 
it  were,  stands  on  the  defensive,  maintaining  His 
integrity  against  the  sin  of  the  world ;  but 
that  is  only  a  mistake.  God's  righteousness  is 
affluent,  overflowing,  the  source  of  all  the  good- 
ness in  the  world ;  and  we  see  in  Jesus  Christ 
that  this  is  so.  The  truth  in  all  this  is  as  obvious 
as  the  irrelevance.  Of  course  all  goodness  is 
of  God ;  no  man  would  less  have  wished  to 
question  this  than  St.  Paul.  But  St.  Paul  felt  that 
the  sin  of  the  world  made  a  difference  to  God  ; 
it  was  a  sin  against  His  righteousness,  and  His 
righteousness  had  to  be  vindicated  against  it ; 
it  could  not  ignore  it,  and  go  on  simpliciter 
'justifying'  men  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 
Such  an  interpretation  of  the  passage  ignores 
altogether  the  problem  which  the  sin  of  the 
world  (as  St.  Paul  looked  at  it)  presented  to 
God.     It  makes  no  attempt  whatever  to  define 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD        169 

the  relation,  on  which  everything  in  the  passage 
turns,  between  the  divine  righteousness  and  the 
death  of  Christ  as  a  IXaarrjpiov ;  and  in  missing 
altogether  the  problem,  it  misses  as  completely 
the  solution — that  is,  it  misses  the  Gospel.  We 
cannot  keep  Christianity,  or  any  specifically 
Christian  truth,  if  we  deny  its  premises. 

(2)  There  are  those  who  assimilate  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  this  passage  to  the 
SiKaioavvrj  6eov  in  the  Psalms  and  later  Isaiah, 
those  familiar  passages  in  which  it  is  so  often 
found  as  a  parallel  to  awrrjpi'a  (salvation).  It 
is  in  these,  they  argue,  that  the  real  antecedents 
are  found  both  of  St.  Paul's  thoughts  and  of  his 
languafre.  What,  for  instance,  could  be  closer  to 
his  mind  than  Ps.  xcvi.  2 :  'The  Lord  hath  made 
known  His  salvation;  His  righteousness  hath 
He  openly  shewed  in  the  sight  of  the  heathen '  ? 
In  the  Gospel  we  have  the  manifestation  of  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  this  sense,  a  righteous- 
ness which  is  indistinguishable  from  His  grace, 
and  in  which  He  shows  Himself  righteous  by 
acting  in  accordance  with  His  covenant  obliga- 
tions— receiving  His  people  graciously,  and  loving 
them  freely.^     There  is  something  attractive  in 

'  This  is  the  view  of  Riischl,  who  decides  that  everywhere  in 
Paul  the  righteousness  of  God  means  the  mode  of  procedure 
which  is  consistent  with  God's  having  the  salvation  of  believers 
as  His  end  ."'cchtf.  u.  Vers.  v}.  117).  In  the  same  sense  he  argues 
that  the  correlative  idea  to  the  righteousness  of  God  is  always  that 
of  the  righteousness  of  His  people  (ibid.  108,  110).  He  seems  to 
forget  here  that  the  God  of  the  Gospel  is  defined  by  St  Paul  in 


I70  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

this,  and  something  true;  but  it  is  as  completely 
irrelevant  to  St,  Paul's  thought  in  the  passage 
before  us  as  the  more  superficial  view  already 
referred  to.  For  one  thing,  St.  Paul  never  refers 
to  any  of  these  passages  in  connecting  his  gospel 
with  the  Old  Testament.  He  must  have  been 
perfectly  aware  that  they  were  written  on  another 
plane  than  that  on  which  he  stood  as  a  sinful 
man  and  a  preacher  to  sinners.  They  were 
written  for  God's  covenant  people,  to  assure 
them  that  God  would  be  true  to  the  obligations 
of  the  covenant,  and  would  demonstrate  His 
righteousness  in  doing  so ;  God's  righteous- 
ness, in  all  these  passages,  is  that  attribute  to 
which  His  people  appeal  when  they  are  wronged. 
The  situation  which  St.  Paul  has  before  him, 
however,  is  not  that  of  God's  people,  wronged 
by  their  enemies,  and  entitled  to  appeal  to  His 
righteousness  to  plead  their  cause  and  put  them 
in  the  right ;  it  is  that  of  people  who  have  no 
cause,  who  are  all  in  the  wrong  with  God,  whose 
sins  impeach  them  without  ceasing,  to  whom 
God  as  Righteous  Judge  is  not,  as  to  a  wronged 

terms  which  expressly  contradict  this  view,  as  '  He  who  justifies 
the  ungodly'  (Rom.  iv.  5) ;  and  that  a  reference  to  sin  rather  than 
to  righteousness  in  the  people  is  the  true  correlative  of  the  Pauline 
SiKatoaivri  OeoO.  Ritschl's  treatment  of  the  passage  in  Rom.  iii.  3ff., 
where  God's  rit;hui>iisness  is  spoken  of  in  connection  with  the 
j"dgment  of  the  worM,  and  with  the  infliction  of  the  final  wrath 
upon  it,  and  where  it  evidently  includes  something  other  than 
the  gracious  consistency  to  which  Ritschl  would  limit  it,  is  an 
amusing  combination  of  sophistry  and  paradox. 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD         171 

covenant  people,  a  tower  of  hope,  but  a  name 
which  sums  up  all  their  fears.  The  people  for 
whom  Isaiah  and  the  Psalms  were  written  were 
people  who,  being  put  in  the  wrong  by  their 
adversaries  on  earth,  had  a  supreme  appeal  to 
God,  before  whom  they  were  confident  they 
should  be  in  the  right ;  the  people  to  whom  St. 
Paul  preaches  are  people  who  before  God  have 
no  case,  so  that  the  assurances  of  the  prophet  and 
the  psalmists  are  nothing  to  them.  Of  course 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  New  Covenant,  and  it 
is  possible  for  those  who  are  within  it  to  appro- 
priate these  Old  Testament  texts ;  there  is,  for 
example,  a  clear  instance  of  such  appropriation  in 
the  First  Epistle  of  John  i.9:  'If  we  confess  our  sins, 
He  is  faithful  and  righteous  to  forgive  us  our  sins, 
and  to  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteousness.'  In 
other  words.  He  is  true  to  the  obligations  of  His 
covenant  with  us  in  Christ.  These  glorious  Old 
Testament  Scriptures,  therefore,  are  not  without 
their  meaning  for  the  New,  or  their  influence  in  it; 
but  it  is  a  complete  mistake,  and  it  has  been  the 
source  of  the  most  far-reaching  and  disastrous 
confusion,  to  try  to  deduce  from  them  the  Pauline 
conception  of  the  righteousness  of  God.  And 
it  must  be  repeated  that  in  such  interpretations, 
as  in  those  already  referred  to,  there  is  again 
wanting  any  sense  of  a  problem  such  as  St.  Paul 
is  undoubtedly  grappling  with,  and  any  attempt 
to  define  explicitly  and  intelligibly  the  relation 


172  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

between  the  righteousness  of  God,  conceived  as  it 
is  here  conceived,  and  the  propitiation  in  the 
blood  of  Christ,  Indeed,  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  for  St.  Paul  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
BiKaioavvT)  deov  except  through  the  propitiation ; 
whereas  here  the  BiKaioavvrj  Oeov  is  fully  explained, 
with  no  reference  to  the  propitiation  whatever. 

(3)  It  is  worth  while  to  refer  to  one  particular 
construction  of  the  passage,  in  which  an  attempt 
is  made  to  keep  the  same  sense  of  SiKaioawT) 
Oeov  throughout,  and  at  the  same  time  to  do 
justice  to  the  pro'olem  which  is  obviously  in- 
volved. It  is  that  which  is  given  by  Dr.  Seeberg 
of  Dorpat  in  his  book,  Der  Tod  Christi.  Seeberg 
as  a  writer  is  not  distinguished  either  by  lucidity 
or  conciseness,  but,  put  briefly,  his  interpreta- 
tion is  as  follows.  Righteousness  means  acting 
according  to  one's  proper  norm,  doing  what  one 
ought  to  do.  God's  proper  norm,  the  true  rule 
of  action  for  Him,  is  that  He  should  institute 
and  maintain  fellowship  with  mtn.  He  would 
not  be  righteous  if  He  did  not  do  so;  He  would 
fail  of  acting  in  His  proper  character.  Now,  in 
setting  forth  Christ  as  a  propitiation,  God  does 
what  the  circumstances  require  if  fellowship  is  to 
be  instituted  and  maintained  between  Himself 
and  sinful  men ;  and  it  is  in  this  sense  that 
the  propitiation  manifests  or  demonstrates  His 
righteousness.  It  shows  God  not  unrighteous, 
not  false  to  Himself  and  to  the  tiue  norm  of  His 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD        173 

action,  as  He  would  have  been  if  in  the  face  of 
sin  He  had  simply  let  the  idea  of  fellowship  with 
man  go;  but  manifesting  Himself  as  a  righteous 
God,  who  IS  true  to  Himself  and  to  His  norm 
most  signally  and  conspicuously  in  this,  that 
over  sin  and  in  spite  of  it  He  takes  means  to 
secure  that  fellowship  between  Himself  and  men 
shall  not  finally  lapse.  This  is  ingenious  and 
attractive,  though  whether  the  conception  of  the 
righteousness  of  God  from  which  it  starts  would 
have  been  recognised  by  St.  Paul  or  by  any 
Scripture  writer  is  another  matter;  but  apart 
from  this,  it  obviously  leaves  a  question  un- 
answered, on  the  answer  to  which  a  great  deal 
depends.  That  question  is,  What  is  the  means 
which  God  takes  to  secure  fellowship  with  sinful 
men,  «>.  to  act  toward  them  in  a  way  which  does 
justice  to  Himself?  It  is  implied  in  Seeberg's 
whole  argument  that  sin  does  create  a  problem 
for  God  ;  something  has  to  be  done^  where  sinful 
men  are  concerned,  before  fellowship  with  God 
can  be  taken  for  granted ;  and  that  something 
God  actually  does  when  He  sets  forth  Christ  a 
propitiation,  through  faith,  in  His  blood.  The 
question,  therefore,  is — if  we  are  going  to  think 
seriously  at  all — What  is  the  propitiation,  or 
more  precisely.  How  is  the  propitiation  to  be 
defined  in  relation  to  the  sin  of  the  world,  in 
view  of  which  God  provided  it,  that  He  might 
be  able  still  to  maintain  fellowship  with  man  ? 


174  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

This  is  a  question  which,  so  far  as  I  am  able 
to  follow  him,  Seeberg  never  distinctly  answers. 
He  says  that  God  set  forth  Christ  in  His  blood 
as  '  ein  solches  .  .  .  welches  durch  den  Glauben 
ein  suhnhaft  wirkendes  ist'  (a  thing  or  power  of 
such  a  sort  that  through  faith  it  comes  to  have 
an  atoning  efficacy).^  He  refuses  to  explain  the 
propitiatory  character  of  Christ's  death  by  re- 
garding it  as  sacrificial ;  he  refuses  to  explain  it 
as  in  any  sense  vicarious  ;  neither  of  these  ideas, 
according  to  him,  is  supported  by  St.  Paul.  What 
St.  Paul  taught  was  rather  this.  Christ  compre- 
hended in  Himself  the  whole  human  race,  as 
Adam  did  (this  idea  St.  Paul  borrowed  from  the 
Jewish  doctrine  of  original  sin) ;  and  through  the 
death  of  Christ  humanity  has  suffered  that  which 
the  holy  God  in  grace  claimed  from  it  as  the 
condition  of  its  entering  again  into  fellowship 
with  Him.  As  the  Holy  One,  He  has  made  this 
re-entrance  dependent  upon  death,  and  as  the 
Gracious  One  He  has  consented  to  be  satis- 
fied with  that  suffering  of  death  which  He  has 
made  possible  for  humanity  in  Christ.^  It  is  not 
easy  to  regard  this  as  real  thinking ;  it  is  rather 
an  abnegation  of  thought.  It  does  not  set  the 
death  of  Christ  in  any  real  relation  to  the 
problem  with  which  the  apostle  is  dealing.  The 
suffering  of  death  is  that  which  God  in  His  grace 
is  pleased  to  claim  from  the  sinful  race  as  the 
»  D«r  Tod  Christ i,  p.  187.  «  Jbid.  p.  2S6. 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD        175 

condition  of  restored  fellowship,  and  He  has  been 
further  pleased  to  accept  as  satisfying  this  con- 
dition that  particular  suffering  of  death  which 
Christ  endured,  and  which  can  be  reproduced 
in  individuals  through  faith ;  but  everything  is 
of  mere  good  pleasure,  there  is  no  rational 
necessity  at  any  point.  One  can  only  repeat 
it:  this  is  a  medium  in  which  thinking  is  im- 
possible, and  it  is  not  the  medium  in  which 
St.  Paul's  mind  moved.  It  was  not  an  arbitrary 
appointment  of  God  that  made  the  death  of 
Christ  iXacrrjpLov ;  it  was  the  essential  relation, 
in  all  human  experience,  of  death  and  sin. 
Christ  died  for  our  sins,  because  it  is  in  death 
that  the  divine  judgment  on  sin  is  6nally  ex- 
pressed. Once  we  put  law  and  necessity  out  of 
the  relations  between  Christ's  death  and  our 
sin,  we  dismiss  the  very  possibility  of  thinking 
on  the  subject ;  we  may  use  words  about  it,  but 
they  are  words  without  meaning.  It  is  a  sig- 
nificant feature  of  all  such  explanations,  to  call 
them  so,  of  Christ's  death,  that  they  do  not 
bring  it  into  any  real  relation  to  the  Christian's 
freedom  from  the  law,  or  to  the  controversies 
which  raged  round  this  in  the  Pauline  churches; 
and  this  is  only  one  of  the  ways  in  which  it 
appears  that  though  using  certain  Pauline 
words  they  have  gone  off  tlic  rails  of  Pauline 
thought.  The  passage  in  Romans  becomes 
simple  as  soon  as  we  read  it  in  the  light  of  those 


176  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

wc  have  already  examined  in  2  Corinthians 
and  in  Galatians.  It  is  Christ  set  forth  in 
His  blood  who  is  a  propitiation ;  that  is,  it  is 
Christ  who  died.  In  dying,  as  St.  Paul  con- 
ceived it,  He  made  our  sin  His  own  ;  He  took  it 
on  Himself  as  the  reality  which  it  is  in  God's 
sight  and  to  God's  law :  He  became  sin,  became 
a  curse  for  us.  It  is  this  which  gives  His  death 
a  propitiatory  character  and  power ;  in  other 
words,  which  makes  it  possible  for  God  to  be 
at  once  righteous  and  a  God  who  accepts  as 
righteous  those  who  believe  in  Jesus.  He  is 
righteous,  for  in  the  death  of  Christ  His  Law  is 
honoured  by  the  Son  who  takes  the  sin  of  the 
world  to  Himself  as  all  that  it  is  to  God  ;  and 
He  can  accept  as  righteous  those  who  believe  in 
Jesus,  for  in  so  believing  sin  becomes  to  them 
what  it  is  to  Him.  I  do  not  know  any  word 
which  conveys  the  truth  of  this  if  *  vicarious '  or 
'  substitutionary '  does  not,  nor  do  I  know  any 
interpretation  of  Christ's  death  which  enables 
us  to  regard  it  as  a  demonstration  of  love  to 
sinners,  if  this  vicarious  or  substitutionary  char- 
acter is  denied. 

There  is  much  preaching  about  Christ's  death 
which  fails  to  be  a  preaching  of  Christ's  death, 
and  therefore  to  be  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term 
gospel  preaching,  because  it  ignores  this.  The 
simplest  hearer  feels  that  there  is  something 
irrational  in  saying  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  a 


LOVE  MUST  BE  INTELLIGIBLE        177 

great  proof  of  love  to  the  sinful,  unless  there  is 
shown  at  the  same  time  a  rational  connection 
between  that  death  and  the  responsibilities 
which  sin  involves,  and  from  which  that  death 
delivers.  Perhaps  one  should  beg  pardon  for 
using  so  simple  an  illustration,  but  the  point  is  a 
vital  one,  and  it  is  necessary  to  be  clear.  If  I 
were  sitting  on  the  end  of  the  pier,  on  a  summer 
day,  enjoying  the  sunshine  and  the  air,  and  some 
one  came  along  and  jumped  into  the  water  and 
got  drowned  '  to  prove  his  love  for  me,'  I  should 
find  it  quite  unintelligible.  I  might  be  much  in 
need  of  love,  but  an  act  in  no  rational  relation 
to  any  of  my  necessities  could  not  prove  it.  But 
if  I  had  fallen  over  the  pier  and  were  drowning, 
and  some  one  sprang  into  the  water,  and  at  the 
cost  of  making  my  peril,  or  what  but  for  him 
would  be  my  fate,  his  own,  saved  me  from  death, 
then  I  should  say,  '  Greater  love  hath  no  man 
than  this.'  I  should  say  it  intelligibly,  because 
there  would  be  an  intelligible  relation  between 
the  sacrifice  which  love  made  and  the  necessity 
from  which  it  redeemed.  Is  it  making  any  rash 
assumption  to  say  that  there  must  be  such  an 
intelligible  relation  between  the  death  of  Christ 
— the  great  act  in  which  His  love  to  sinners  is 
demonstrated — and  the  sin  of  the  world  for 
which  in  His  blood  He  is  the  propitiation  ?  I 
do  not  think  so.  Nor  have  I  yet  seen  any 
intelligible   relation  established   between  them, 

M 


178  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

except  that  which  is  the  key  to  the  whole  of  New 
Testament  teaching,  and  which  bids  us  say,  as 
we  look  at  the  Cross,  He  bore  our  sins,  He  died 
our  death.     It  is  so  His  love  constrains  us. 

Accepting  this  interpretation,  we  see  that  the 
whole  secret  of  Christianity  is  contained  in  Christ's 
death,  and  in  the  believing  abandonment  of  the 
soul  to  that  death  in  faith.  It  is  from  Christ's 
death,  and  the  love  which  it  demonstrates,  that 
all  Christian  inferences  are  drawn.  Once  this  is 
accepted,  everything  else  is  easy  and  is  secure. 
'  When  we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us ; 
much  more  then  being  justified  now  in  His  blood 
shall  we  be  saved  through  Him  from  the  wrath. 
For  if  when  we  were  enemies  we  were  reconciled 
to  God  through  the  death  of  His  Son,  much  more, 
being  reconciled,  we  shall  be  saved  in  His  life* 
(Rom.  v.  8  ff.).  The  much  more  implies  that  in 
comparison  with  this  primary,  this  incredibly 
great  proof  of  God's  love,  everything  else  may  be 
taken  for  granted.  It  is  the  same  argument  which 
is  employed  again  in  chap.  viii.  32 :  '  He  that 
spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  delivered  Him  up 
for  us  all,  how  shall  He  not  also  with  Him  freely 
give  us  all  things  ? '  And  as  it  includes  every- 
thing else  on  the  part  of  God,  so  does  it  also 
on  the  part  of  man.  The  propitiatory  death  of 
Christ,  as  an  all-transcending  demonstration  of 
love,  evokes  in  sinful  souls  a  response  which  is 
the  whole  of  Christianity.  The  love  of  Christ 
constraineth    us :    whoever    can    say    that    can 


JURIDICAL  AND  ETHICO-MYSTICAL     179 

say  all  that  is  to  be   said   about  the  Christian 
life. 

This  is  not  the  way  in  which  St.  Paul's  gospel  is 
usually  represented  now.  Since  Pfleiderer's  first 
book  on  Paulinism  was  translated,  between  twenty 
and  thirty  years  ago,  it  has  become  almost  an 
axiom  with  many  writers  on  this  subject,  that  the 
apostle  has  two  doctrines  of  reconciliation — a  juri- 
dical and  an  ethico-mystical  one.  There  is,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  doctrine  that  Christ  died  for  us, 
in  a  sense  like  that  which  has  just  been  explained  ; 
and  on  the  other,  the  doctrine  that  in  a  mystical 
union  with  Christ  effected  by  faith  we  ethically 
die  with  Him  and  live  with  Him — this  dying  with 
Christ  and  living  with  Him,  or  in  Him,  being  the 
thing  we  call  salvation.  What  the  relation  of  the 
two  doctrines  is  to  each  other  is  variously  repre- 
sented. Sometimes  they  are  added  together,  as 
by  Weiss,  as  though  in  spite  of  their  independ- 
ence justice  had  to  be  done  to  both  in  the  work 
of  man's  salvation  :  a  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  alone  in  Christ  who  died  for  us  finding 
its  indispensable  supplement  in  a  doctrine  of 
spiritual  regeneration  through  baptism,  in  which 
we  are  vitally  united  to  Christ  in  His  death  and 
resurrection.  Weiss  holds  that  it  is  not  Pauline 
to  say  that  the  fellowship  of  life  with  Christ  is 
established  by  faith;  it  is  only  established, 
according  to  his  view,  by  baptism.^     But  Paul, 

1  Biblische  Theologie  dts  Neuen  Testaments,  §  84  b.  (English 
Translation,  i.  p.  456  ff.). 


i8o  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

it  is  safe  to  say,  was  incapable  of  divorcing  his 
thoughts  so  completely  from  reality  as  to  repre- 
sent the  matter  thus.  He  was  not  pedantically 
interpreting  a  text,  he  was  expounding  an  experi- 
ence ;  and  there  is  nothing  in  any  Christian 
experience  answering  to  this  dead  or  inert  justi- 
fication by  faith,  which  has  no  relation  to  the 
new  life,  nor  again  is  there  anything  in 
Christian  experience  like  this  new  life  which 
is  added  by  baptism  to  the  experience  of  justi- 
fication by  faith,  but  does  not  spring  out  of  it. 
It  is  a  moral  wrong  to  any  serious-minded  person 
to  construe  his  words  in  this  way.  Ritschl  does 
not  add  the  two  sides  of  the  Pauline  gospel 
together  as  Weiss  does.  For  him  they  stand 
side  by  side  in  the  apostle,  and  though  salvation 
is  made  equally  dependent  on  the  one  and  the 
other  they  are  never  combined.  Romans  sixth  has 
nothing  to  do  with  Romans  third.  The  concep- 
tion of  the  new  life,  derived  from  union  to  Christ 
in  His  death  and  resurrection,  is  just  as  indif- 
ferent to  justification  by  faith,  as  the  representa- 
tion of  Christ's  death  in  the  sixth  chapter  of 
Romans  is  to  the  sacrificial  representation  of  the 
same  thing  in  the  third.  The  new  life  or  active 
righteousness  of  the  sixth  chapter  bears  the  same 
name  as  the  divine  righteousness  of  the  third, 
but  materially  they  have  nothing  in  common,  and 
the  diversity  of  their  contents  stands  in  no 
relation  to  the  origination  of  the  one  from  the 


JURIDICAL  AND  ETHICO-MYSTICAL    i8i 

other.^  Ritschl  says  it  is  for  dogmatic,  not  biblical, 
theology  to  define  the  problem  created  by  these 
two  ways  of  salvation  and  the  apparent  contra- 
diction between  them — and  to  attempt  its  solu- 
tion ;  and  Holtzmann  is  disposed  to  censure  Weiss 
for  overlooking  this,  and  attempting  an  adjust- 
ment in  his  Biblical  Theology  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment?- But  this  is  manifestly  unfair  to  St.  Paul. 
The  apostle  knew  nothing  about  the  distinctions 
which  Theological  Encyclopaedia  draws  between 
biblical  and  dogmatic;  he  was  a  man  of  intellectual 
force  and  originality  engaged  in  thinking  out  a 
redeeming  and  regenerative  experience,  and  the 
presumption  surely  is  that  his  thought  will  repre- 
sent somehow  the  consistency  and  unity  of  his 
experience.  If  it  does  so,  it  is  for  his  interpre- 
ters to  make  the  fact  clear  without  troubling 
themselves  whether  the  result  is  to  be  labelled 
biblical  or  dogmatic.  There  are  too  many 
people  who  refuse  to  take  biblical  theology 
seriously,  because  it  is  incoherent,  and  who 
refuse  to  take  dogmatic  seriously,  because  its 
consistency  is  artificially  produced  by  suppres- 
sing the  exuberant  variety  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Perhaps  if  New  Testament  experience 
had  justice  done  to  it,  the  incoherence  of  New 
Testament  thinking  would  not  be  so  obvious. 
Holtzmann  himself  attempts  to  find  points  of 
contact,   or   lines   of  connection,  or  to  borrow 

*  Rtchtf.  M.  Versohnung,  ii.  pp.  338  f.       '  Neut.  Theologies  ii.  p.  I4L 


iSa  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

from  another  field  an  expression  of  Dr.  Fair- 
bairn's, 'developmental  coincidences'  between  the 
two  gospels,  though  in  a  haphazard  way ;  ideas 
like  7r[(rri<;,  irvev^a,  and  a7ro\vTpco(n<i,  it  is  pointed 
out,  find  a  place  in  the  unfolding  of  both.^ 

In  spite  of  such  high  authorities,  I  venture  to 
put  in  a  plea  for  the  coherence  of  St.  Paul.  If 
we  found  the  one  theory,  as  it  is  called,  at  one 
period  of  his  life,  and  the  other  at  another,  there 
might  be  a  prima  facie  case  for  inconsistency ; 
but  when  both  are  set  out  in  full  detail,  in  a 
definite  sequence,  in  the  same  letter,  and  that 
the  most  systematic  of  all  the  apostle's  writings, 
and  one  which  aims  unambiguously  at  exhibiting 
his  gospel  as  a  whole,  the  presumption  is  all 
the  other  way.  There  are  cases  in  which  it  is 
fallacious  to  say  post  hoc,  ergo  propter  hoc,  but 
this  is  not  one.  There  could  not  be  a  greater 
mistake  than  to  assume  that  in  the  sixth  chapter 
of  Romans  St.  Paul  makes  a  new  beginning, 
forgetting  all  that  he  has  said,  and  meeting 
objections  to  that  gospel  which  we  have  been 
expounding  by  introducing  ideas  which  have  no 
relation  to  it,  and  which  may  indeed  be  described 
as  a  correction  of  it,  or  a  supplement  to  it,  or 
a  substitute  for  it,  but  which  are  in  no  sense 
whatever  a  defence  of  it.  A  defence  of  it  is 
clearly  what  St.  Paul  means  to  give,  and  we  are 
bound  to  assume  that  he  saw  what  he  waa  doing. 

*  Ntut.  'J'heelogU,  ii.  p.  137  ff. 


JURIDICAL  AND  ETHICO-MYSTICAL     183 

He  had  preached  that  sinful  men  are  justified 
freely  through  faith  in  Jesus  set  forth  by  God 
as  a  propitiation  in  His  blood,  and  his  adversaries 
had  brought  against  this  gospel  the  accusation  that 
it  tempted  to  and  even  justified  continuance  in  sin. 
What  is  his  answer  ?    To  begin  with,  it  is  an  ex- 
pression of  moral  horror  at  the  suggestion,    yu,^ 
yivoiTo !    But,  in  the  next  place,  it  is  a  demonstra- 
tion of  the  inconsistency  of  such  a  line  of  action 
with  what  is  involved  in  justification.    '  Men  who 
like  us  died  to  sin,  how  shall  we  still  live  in  it?' 
(Rom.  vi.  2.)    Why  should  it  be  taken  for  granted 
that  '  dying  to  sin '  is  a  new  idea  here,  on  a  new 
plane,  an  idea  which  startles  one  who  has  been 
following  only  that  interpretation  of  justification 
which  we  find  in  Rom.  chs.  iii.-v.?     It  may  be  a 
new  idea  to  a  man  who  takes  the  point  of  view 
of  St.  Paul's  opponents,  and  who  does  not  know 
what  it  is  to  be  justified  through  faith  in  the 
propitiation   which  is  in  Christ's  death ;    but  it 
is  not  a  new  idea  to  the  apostle,  nor  to  any  one 
who  has  received  the  reconciliation  he  preaches ; 
nor  would  he  be  offering  any  logical  defence  of 
his  gospel  if  it  were  a  new  idea.     But  it  is  no 
new  idea  at  all ;   it  is  Christ  dying  for  sin — 
St.  Paul  reminds  the  objectors  to  his  doctrine — 
it  is  Christ  dying  our  death  on  the  tree,  who 
evokes  the  faith  by  which  we  become  right  with 
God ;  and  the  faith  which  He  evokes  answers  to 
what   He  is  and  to  what  He  does :   it  is  faith 


1 84  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

which  has  a  death  to  sin  in  it.  Of  course,  if 
Christ's  death  were  not  what  it  has  been  described 
to  be,  it  would  be  nothing  to  us  ;  it  would  evoke 
no  faith  at  all ;  but  being  what  it  has  been 
described  to  be,  the  faith  which  is  the  response 
to  it  is  a  faith  which  inevitably  takes  moral 
contents  and  quality  from  it.  The  very  san  e 
experience  in  which  a  man  becomes  right  with 
God — that  is,  the  experience  of  faith  in  Christ 
who  died  for  sins — is  an  experience  in  which  he 
becomes  a  dead  man,  so  far  as  sin  is  concerned,  a 
living  man  (though  this  is  but  the  same  thing  in 
other  words),  so  far  as  God  is  concerned.  This, 
I  repeat,  is  what  is  given  in  experience  to  the 
man  who  believes  in  Christ  as  St.  Paul  preaches 
him  in  Rom.  iii.  25  f,  and  this  's  the  ethical 
justification  of  his  gospel.  What  is  fundamental 
here  is  Christ  in  the  character  of  propitiation, 
Christ  bearing  our  sin  in  His  death  ;  it  is  this 
Christ  and  no  other  who  draws  us  in  faith  to 
Himself,  so  that  in  and  through  faith  His  death 
and  life  become  ours.  The  forensic  theory  of 
atonement,  as  it  is  called,  is  not  unrelated  to  the 
ethico-mystical ;  it  is  not  parallel  to  it ;  it  is  not 
a  mistaken  ad  hominem  or  rather  ad  Pharisaeum 
mode  of  thought  which  ought  to  be  displaced  by 
the  other  ;  it  has  the  essential  eternal  truth  in 
it  by  which  and  by  which  alone  the  experiences 
are  generated  in  which  the  strength  of  the  other 
is  supposed  to  lie.     I  do  not  much  care  for  the 


JURIDICAL  AND  ETHICO-MYSTICAL     185 

expression  '  mystical  union '  with  Christ,  for  it 
has  been  much  abused,  and  in  St.  Paul  especially 
has  led  to  much  hasty  misconstruction  of  the 
New  Testament ;  but  if  we  are  to  use  it  at  all,  we 
must  say  that  it  is  something  which  is  not  a 
substitute  for,  but  the  fruit  of,  the  vicarious 
death  of  Christ.  It  owes  its  very  being  to  that 
atonement  outside  of  us,  that  finished  work  of 
Christ,  which  some  would  use  it  to  discredit. 
And  it  is  because  this  is  so,  that  St.  Paul  can  use 
it,  so  far  as  he  does  so,  not  to  replace,  or  to 
supplement,  or  to  correct,  but  to  vindicate  and 
show  the  moral  adequacy  of  his  doctrine  of 
justification.  Of  course,  in  the  last  resort,  the 
objection  brought  against  St.  Paul's  gospel  can 
only  be  practically  refuted.  It  must  be  lived 
down,  not  argued  down ;  hence  the  hortatory  tone 
of  Romans  vl.  But  the  new  life  is  involved  in  the 
faith  evoked  by  the  sin-bearing  death  of  Christ, 
and  in  nothing  else;  it  is  involved  in  this,  and 
this  is  pictorially  presented  in  baptism.  Hence 
the  use  which  St.  Paul  makes  of  this  sacrament 
in  the  same  chapter.  He  is  able  to  use  it  in  his 
argument  in  the  way  he  does  because  baptism 
and  faith  are  but  the  outside  and  the  inside  of 
the  same  thing.  If  baptism,  then,  is  symbolically 
inconsistent  with  continuance  in  sin,  as  is 
apparent  to  every  one,  faith  is  really  inconsistent 
with  it.  But  faith  is  relative  to  the  SiKaioavvif 
6eov,  the  divine  justification  which  is  St.  Paul's 


i86  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

gospel,   and    therefore   that   gospel   in   turn    is 
beyond  moral  reproach.^ 

It  is  possible  to  go  more  into  detail  here  on 
lines  suggested  by  St.  Paul  himself.  Christ  died 
our  death  on  the  cross,  and  the  faith  which  that 
death  evokes  has  a  death  in  it  also.  But  how  are 
we  to  interpret  this  ?  By  relation  to  what  are 
we  to  define  the  death  which  is  involved  in  faith? 
We  may  define  it  by  relation  to  anything  by 
relation  to  which  Christ's  death  has  been  defined. 
Thus,  following  the  apostle,  we  can  say  that  the 
death  involved  in  faith  is  (i)  a  death  to  sin. 
Christ's  death  on  the  cross  was  a  death  to  sin, 
the  apostle  tells  us,  in  the  sense  that  it  intro- 
duced him  to  a  condition  in  which  he  had  no 
longer  any  responsibility  in  relation  to  it  (Rom. 
vi.  lo).  He  had  assumed  the  responsibility  of  it 
in  love,  but  He  had  also  discharged  it,  and  sin 
had  no  claim  on  Him  further.  For  us,  dying  to 
sin  may  seem  to  have  a  different  meaning ;  it  is 
not  a  discharge  from  its  responsibilities  that  is 
wanted,  but  a  deliverance  from  its  power.  But 
this  can  only  come  on  the  foundation  of  the 
other;  it  is  the  discharge  from  the  responsi- 
bilities of  sin  involved  in  Christ's  death  and 
appropriated  in  faith,  which  is  the  motive  power 
in  the  daily  ethical  dying  to  sin.  It  really  is  such 
a  motive  power,  and  the  only  one  in  the  world, 

*  For  a  fuller  treatment  of  this  point,  see  article  in  Expositor, 
October  1901,  '  The  Righteousness  of  God  and  the  New  Life.' 


DYING  TO  SIN  187 

when  we  realise  what  it  is.  But  just  as  death  to 
the  law — to  anticipate  for  a  moment  another 
experience  involved  in  faith  in  the  death  of 
Christ — needs  to  be  realised  by  ceaseless  vigil- 
ance against  all  that  would  enslave  the  conscience, 
and  against  everything  in  our  nature  that  makes 
us  seek  external  supports,  and  authorities  to 
relieve  us  of  the  responsibility  of  becoming  a  law 
to  ourselves  under  the  constraint  of  the  cross,  so 
must  death  to  sin  also  be  realised  by  moral  effort. 
It  is  involved  in  faith,  so  far  as  the  principle  and 
the  motive  power  are  concerned  ;  the  man  who 
plants  his  whole  hope  in  the  revelation  of  God 
made  in  Christ  the  propitiation  is  a  man  who  in 
the  act  and  for  the  time  is  taking  sin,  death,  the 
law,  and  the  judgment  of  God,  as  all  that  they 
are  to  Christ ;  that  is,  he  is  owning  sin,  and  dis- 
owning it  utterly;  acknowledging  it  as  unre- 
servedly in  all  its  responsibility,  and  separating 
himself  as  entirely  from  it,  as  Christ  did  when 
He  died.  Such  faith,  involving  such  a  relation 
to  sin  as  can  be  called  a  death  to  it,  covers  the 
whole  life,  and  is  a  moral  guarantee  for  it ;  yet 
the  death  to  sin  which  is  lodged  in  it  has  to  be 
carried  out  in  a  daily  mortification  of  evil,  the 
initial  crucifixion  with  Christ  in  a  daily  cruci- 
fixion of  the  passions  and  lusts. 

(2)  It  may  even  be  said  more  specifically  that 
the  death  involved  in  faith  is  a  death  to  the  flesh. 
This   is   the   point   of  the   difficult   passage   in 


1 88  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Romans  viii.  3  f.  St.  Paul  is  there  describing  the 
way  of  salvation  from  sin,  and  says  that  the  law 
was  impotent  in  the  matter  owing  to  the  flesh. 
The  flesh  virtually  means  sin  in  its  constitutional 
and  instinctive  character — sin  as  the  nature  or 
the  second  nature  of  man,  it  does  not  here 
matter  which.  What  the  law  could  not  do  God 
took  another  way  of  doing.  He  sent  His  Son  in 
the  likeness  of  flesh  of  sin,  and  as  a  sin-offering, 
and  in  so  doing  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh. 
6/ioLQjfMa  here  no  doubt  emphasises  Christ's  like- 
ness to  us :  it  is  not  meant  to  suggest  difference 
or  unreality  in  His  nature.  He  was  all  that  we 
are,  short  of  sin.  Yet  He  came  in  connection 
with  sin,  or  as  a  sin-offering,  and  it  is  through 
this  that  we  must  interpret  the  expression  'con- 
demned sin  in  the  flesh.'  It  does  not  mean  that 
Christ  showed  sin  to  be  inexcusable,  by  Himself 
leading  a  sinless  life ;  there  is  no  salvation,  no 
emancipation  from  sin  in  that.  The  condemna- 
tion is  the  act  of  God,  and  in  sending  His  own 
Son  in  connection  with  sin — which  must  mean 
in  the  one  connection  with  it  which  St.  Paul  ever 
refers  to,  i.e.  as  a  propitiation  for  it — God  con- 
demned it  in  the  flesh.  His  judgment  came  on 
it  in  the  death  which  Christ  died  in  our  nature, 
and  with  that  judgment  its  right  and  its  power 
in  our  nature  came  to  an  end.  I  say  its  right 
and  its  power,  for  the  things  are  related.  Until 
the  responsibilities   involved   in   sin   have  been 


DYING  TO  THE  FLESH  1S9 

fully  acknowledged  and  met,  as  they  are  acknow- 
ledged and  met  in  the  death  of  Christ,  its  power 
remains ;  to  express  the  truth  psychologically, 
until  sin  is  expiated,  the  sinner  has  a  bad  con- 
science, and  as  long  as  a  man  has  a  bad  conscience, 
he  cannot  begin  to  be  a  good  man.  It  is  because 
Christ's  death  deals  effectually  with  the  responsi- 
bility of  sin,  and  puts  right  with  God  the  man 
who  believes  in  Him,  that  it  can  do  for  our  nature 
what  law  could  never  do — break  sin's  power. 
Weiss  and  others  have  argued  that  it  is  a  mistake 
to  find  here  the  idea  of  expiation  :  the  context  is 
interested  only  in  the  moral  deliverance  from 
evil.  But  from  the  point  of  view  of  St.  Paul,  this 
is  not  a  reasonable  objection :  it  is  setting  the 
end  against  the  means.  He  knew  by  experience 
that  sin  could  only  have  its  power  broken  by 
being  expiated,  and  that  is  precisely  what  he 
teaches  here.  Only,  he  gives  it  a  peculiar  turn. 
The  fact  that  expiation  has  been  made  through 
Christ's  death  for  sin  in  the  very  nature  which 
we  wear,  is  used  to  bring  out  the  idea  that  in  that 
nature,  at  all  events,  sin  can  have  no  indefeasible 
right  and  no  impregnable  seat  The  death  involved 
in  faith  in  Christ  is  a  death  not  only  to  sin  gener- 
ally, but  to  sin  in  the  constitutional  and  virulent 
character  suggested  by  the  flesh.  But  like  the 
other  '  deaths,'  this  one  too  needs  to  be  morally 
realised.  '  Mortify  therefore  your  members  which 
are  upon  the  earth.' 


190  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

(3)  Further,  the  death  involved  in  faith  is  re- 
peatedly defined  by  St.  Paul  as  a  death  to  the  law, 
or  to  law  in  general  (Gal.  ii.  19  ;  Rom.  vi.  14,  vii.4). 
There  is  undoubtedly  something  paradoxical 
in  this,  and  it  is  the  point  at  which  St.  Paul's 
gospel,  from  the  beginning,  was  most  misunder- 
stood and  most  assailed.  On  the  one  hand,  when 
Christ  died,  justice  was  done  to  the  law  of  God, 
both  as  an  imperative  and  as  a  condemning  law, 
as  it  had  never  been  done  before.  The  will  of 
God  had  been  honoured  by  a  life  of  perfect  obedi- 
ence, and  the  awful  experience  of  death  in  which 
God's  inexorable  judgment  on  sin  comes  home 
to  the  conscience  had  been  borne  in  the  same 
obedience  and  love  by  His  sinless  Son.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  this  death  evokes  the  faith  for 
which  it  appeals,  the  righteous  requirement  of 
the  law  is  fulfilled  in  the  believer ;  the  law  gets 
its  due  in  his  life  also,  or,  as  the  apostle  puts  it, 
it  is  established  by  faith.  How  is  it,  then,  that 
faith  involves  a  death  to  the  law?  It  is  through 
the  assurance,  given  to  faith  at  the  cross,  that  so 
far  as  doing  the  will  of  God  is  concerned,  a  new 
and  living  way  has  been  found.  It  is  not  the  law 
in  its  old  legal  form — the  law  of  statutory  injunc- 
tions and  prohibitions — which  is  to  generate 
goodness  in  sinful  man  ;  it  is  the  law  glorified  in 
the  atonement.  The  whole  inspiration  of  the 
Christian  life  lies  here,  and  it  is  an  inspiration, 
not  a  statutory  requirement.    Nothing  is  to  count 


DYING  TO  THE  J.AW  191 

in  the  life  of  a  Christian  which  does  not  come  with 
perfect  freedom  from  this  source.  This  explains 
the  extraordinary  emphasis  which  St.  Paul 
everywhere  lays  on  liberty.  Liberty  is  the  cor- 
relative of  responsibility  ;  man  must  be  perfectly 
free  that  the  whole  weight  of  his  responsibilities 
may  come  upon  him.  But  this  weight  of  respon- 
sibility cannot  be  faced,  and  would  not  sanctify 
even  if  it  could  be  faced,  /«  vacuo  \  it  can  be  faced 
only  when  we  know  God  in  Christ  crucified  ;  and 
it  does  sanctify,  when  the  constraint  of  the  atone- 
ment, with  its  awful  homage  to  the  holiness  of 
God,  descends  upon  the  heart.  But  this  is  all 
that  is  required,  for  this  is  too  great  to  be  com- 
promised by  alliance  with  anything  else.  Perfect 
freedom,  with  entire  responsibility  to  the  Re- 
deemer— the  obligation  to  be  a  law  to  one- 
self, with  the  power  of  Christ's  passion  resting 
upon  the  spirit — that  is  the  death  to  law  which 
St.  Paul  contemplates.  No  statutes,  no  tradi- 
tions of  men,  no  dogmata,  int-llectual  or  moral, 
no  scruples  in  the  consciences  of  others,  are  to 
have  legal  obligations  for  us  any  lon^ier.  Not 
even  the  letters  written  by  the  finger  of  God  on 
the  tables  of  stone  constitute  a  legal  obligation 
for  the  Christian.  All  that  he  is  to  be  must 
come  freely  out  of  the  atoning  death  of  Christ. 
He  is  dead  to  the  law — in  the  widest  sense  of  the 
word,  he  is  dead  to  law — through  the  body  of 
Christ.     From  this  freedom  we  are  always  being 


iga  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

tempted  to  relapse.  We  are  always  establishing 
for  ourselves,  or  letting  others  impose  upon  us, 
customs  —  whether  intellectual,  as  creeds;  or 
ethical,  as  the  conventional  ways  of  being  charit- 
able or  of  worshipping  God — which  though  good 
in  themselves,  tend  to  corrupt  the  world  just 
because  they  are  customs :  in  other  words,  we 
are  always  tacitly  denying  that  the  death  of 
Christ  does  full  justice  to  law  in  every  sense  of 
the  term,  and  that  for  those  who  believe  in  it  law 
exists  henceforth  only  in  the  divine  glory  of  the 
atonement,  and  in  the  life  which  it  inspires. 

It  may  seem  astonishing  that  in  all  this  no 
reference  has  been  made  to  the  Spirit,  but  the 
omission,  I  think,  can  be  justified,'  For  one 
thing,  St.  Paul  himself  discusses  the  whole  sub- 
ject of  the  Christian's  death  with  Christ,  as 
involved  in  Christ's  death  and  the  Christian's 
faith  in  it,  without  reference  to  the  Spirit.  The 
Spirit  is  not  mentioned  in  the  sixth  chapter  of 
Romans.  I  do  not  say  it  is  not  implied — for  in- 
stance, in  the  allusions  to  baptism ;  but  it  is 
implied  in  all  that  the  apostle  says ;  it  is  not 
implied  as  something  to  be  added  to  it.  Theo- 
logically, the  Spirit  is  the  divine  correlative  of 
faith,  and  of  the  dying  with  Christ  and  living 
with  Christ,  of  which  we  have  been  speaking;  it 
is  the  power  of  God  which  is  manifested  in  every 

^  For  a  fuller  treatment  of  the  Spirit  and  the  New  LifCt  ae* 
•ftide  in  Exposittr,  Decemf>er  1901. 


THE  SPIRIT  IN  ST.  PAUL  193 

Christian  experience  whatever.  It  is  not  some- 
thing specifically  divine  which  comes  in  through 
baptism  and  has  no  relation  to  faith  and  justi- 
fication ;  it  is  related  in  the  same  way  to  all ;  it 
is  the  divine  factor  in  all  that  restores  man  to, 
and  maintains  him  in,  the  life  of  God.  But  the 
Spirit  does  not  work  in  vacuo.  He  glorifies 
Christ.  He  works  through  the  propitiation,  in- 
terpreting, revealing,  applying  it ;  and  when  we 
talk  of  the  Spirit  as  an  abstractly  supernatural 
power,  a  power  of  God  not  working  through  the 
gospel  and  its  appeal  to  the  reason,  conscience, 
and  will  of  man,  we  are  not  on  Christian  ground. 
Without  the  Spirit — that  is,  without  God — all 
that  has  been  said  about  the  meaning  of  Christ's 
death  could  not  win  upon  men  ;  but  just  because 
the  action  of  the  Spirit  is  implied  as  the  corre- 
lative of  faith  at  every  point,  it  is  illegitimate 
to  call  it  in  to  explain  one  Christian  experience 
more  than  another — for  instance,  to  derive  re- 
generation from  it,  or  the  new  life,  but  not  justi- 
fication. Either  Spirit  or  Faith  may  truly  be 
said  to  be  co-extensive  with  Christianity,  and 
therefore  they  are  co-extensive  with  each  other. 
But  if  we  are  speaking  of  the  new  moral  life  of 
the  Christian,  and  ask  what  we  mean  by  the 
Spirit  psychologically  —  that  is,  what  form  it 
takes  as  an  experience — I  should  say  it  is  in- 
distinguishable from  that  infinite  assurance  of 
God's  love,  given  in  Christ's  death,  through  which 

N 


194  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

the  Christian  is  made  more  than  conqueror  in 
all  the  difficulties  of  life,  inward  or  external.  It 
is  with  this  assurance  the  Spirit  is  connected 
when  St.  Paul  opens  his  discussion  of  the  subject 
in  Romans  v.  5 :  '  The  love  of  God  is  shed 
abroad  in  our  hearts  through  the  Holy  Spirit 
given  to  us.*  It  is  with  this  same  assurance  he 
concludes  his  discussion,  ch.  viii.  35 :  *  Who 
shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God?'  The 
triumphant  certainty  of  this  love,  a  certainty 
always  recurring  to  and  resting  on  that  miracle 
of  miracles,  the  sin-bearing  death  of  Christ,  is 
the  same  thing  as  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
it  is  this  joy  which  is  the  Christian's  strength. 
From  the  Spirit,  then,  or  from  the  love  of  God 
as  an  assured  possession,  the  Christian  life  may 
equally  be  explained.  And  it  is  not  another, 
but  the  same  explanation,  when  we  say  that  it 
is  begotten  and  sustained  from  beginning  to  end 
by  the  virtue  which  dwells  in  the  propitiatory 
death  of  Jesus. 

(V.)  When  we  come  to  the  epistles  of  the 
Imprisonment  a  new  range  seems  to  be  given 
to  Christ's  death,  and  to  the  work  of  reconcilia- 
tion which  is  accomplished  in  it.  This  holds, 
at  least,  of  the  Epistles  to  the  Colossians  and 
Ephesians  ;  so  far  as  Philippians  is  concerned, 
we  find  ourselves  in  the  same  circle  of  ideas  as 
in  Galatians  and  Romans.  The  close  parallel, 
indeed,  of    Phil.   iii.   9  f.   with   the    exposition 


THE  EPISTLES  OF  THE  IMPRISONMENT    195 

of  the  apostolic  gospel  in  these  earlier  letters 
is  a  striking  proof  of  the  tenacity  and  con- 
sistency of  St.  Paul's  thought.  But  in  Colossians 
we  are  confronted  with  a  new  situation.  'The 
world '  which  is  the  object  of  reconciliation  is  no 
longer  as  in  2  Cor.  v.  19,  or  Rom.  iii.  19,  the 
world  of  sinful  men ;  it  is  a  world  on  a  grander 
scale.  *  God  has  been  pleased  through  Him  to 
reconcile  all  things  to  Himself,  having  made 
peace  through  the  blood  of  His  cross,  through 
Him,  whether  they  be  things  on  earth  or  things 
in  heaven  *  (Col.  i.  20).  The  reconciliation  of 
sinful  men  is  represented  as  though  it  were  only 
a  part  of  this  vaster  work.  '  And  you,'  it  is 
added,  'who  were  once  estranged,  and  enemies 
in  mind  by  wicked  works.  He  has  now  reconciled 
in  the  body  of  His  flesh  through  death  '  (v.  21  f.). 
The  same  ideas  are  found  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians  (i.  7  ff.).  Here  we  start  with  the 
historical  Christ,  *  in  whom  we  have  our  redemp- 
tion through  His  blood,  even  the  forgiveness 
of  our  trespasses ' ;  but  when  the  mystery  of 
Christ's  work  is  revealed  to  the  Christian  in- 
telligence, it  is  seen  to  have  as  its  end  'the 
gathering  together  in  one  of  all  things  in  Him, 
both  things  in  (or  above)  the  heavens  and 
things  on  the  earth '  (v.  10).  This  enlargement 
of  the  scope  of  Christ's  death,  or,  if  we  prefer 
to  call  it  so,  this  extension  of  its  virtue  into 
regions    where    we    cannot    speak   of   it    from 


196  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

experience,  has  sometimes  had  a  disconcerting 
effect,  and  the  bearings  of  it  are  not  quite  clear. 
It  is  argued  by  some,  who  naturally  wish  to  be 
as  precise  as  possible  in  interpreting  their  author, 
that  'the  things  in  heaven  and  the  things  on 
earth,'  which  are  referred  to  in  the  passages 
just  quoted,  must  be  spiritual  beings ;  only  such 
can  be  the  objects  of  reconciliation,  for  only 
such  can  have  estranged  themselves  from  God 
by  sin.  But  where  do  we  find  the  idea  of  any 
such  estrangement  in  Scripture,  except  in  the 
case  of  disobedient  angels  to  whom  the  idea  of 
reconciliation  is  never  applied  ?  For  answer 
we  are  pointed  to  various  passages  in  the  Old 
and  the  New  Testament,  not  to  mention  Jewish 
literature  outside,  in  which  there  is  the  con- 
ception of  spiritual  beings  whose  fortunes  are 
somehow  bound  up  with  those  of  men.  Thus 
in  Isaiah  xxiv.  21,  a  late  passage  in  which 
apocalypse  begins  to  displace  prophecy,  we  read : 
*  It  shall  come  to  pass  in  that  day  that  the  Lord 
shall  punish  the  host  of  the  high  ones  on  high, 
and  the  kings  of  the  earth  upon  the  earth,'  The 
two  sets  of  persons  here  referred  to  somehow 
correspond  to  each  other ;  there  is  a  counter- 
part in  the  unseen  world  of  the  characters  and 
fortunes  visible  on  earth.  Again,  in  the  book 
of  Daniel  we  hear  of  '  the  prince  of  the  king- 
dom of  Persia  (ch.  x.  13),  'the  prince  of  Grecia' 
(x.  20),  and  'your  prince'  (x.  21),  meaning  the 


,       THE  WORLD  BEYOND  MAN  197 

prince  of  the  children  of  Israel :  the  princes,  as 
the  name  Michael  in  x.  21  shows,  being  in  all 
cases  angelic  beings,  who  in  some  way  or  other 
were  identified  with  the  nations,  representing 
them  in  the  unseen  world,  pleading  their  cause, 
fighting  their  battles,  and  mysteriously  involved 
in  their  fortunes.  It  is  something  quite  analogous 
to  this  that  we  find  in  the  early  chapters  of 
Revelation,  where  the  epistles  of  the  risen 
Lord  are  addressed  to  the  angels  of  the 
churches.  The  angel  is  not  a  bishop;  he  is, 
so  to  speak,  the  personification  of  the  church 
in  the  world  unseen  ;  the  spiritual  counterpart 
of  it,  conceived  as  a  person  on  whom  its 
character  and  responsibilities  will  be  visited 
somehow.  It  is  the  same  idea,  with  an  in- 
dividual application,  that  we  find  in  our  Lord's 
Word  about  the  angels  of  the  little  ones,  who 
in  heaven  do  always  behold  the  face  of  His 
heavenly  Father  (Matt,  xviii.  10),  and  again 
in  the  book  of  Acts  (xii.  15),  where  the  people 
who  would  not  believe  that  Peter  had  been  re- 
leased from  prison  said,  *  It  is  his  angel.'  On 
such  a  background  of  Jewish  belief  the  inter- 
pretation of  these  passages  has  been  essayed. 
It  is  not  man  only,  we  are  asked  to  believe, 
who  has  been  involved  in  sin,  and  in  the  aliena- 
tion from  God  which  is  its  consequence ;  the  sin 
of  man  has  consequences  which  reach  far  beyond 
man  himself.     It  stretches   downward  through 


198  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

nature,  which  has  been  made  subject  to  vanity 
because  of  it,  and  it  stretches  upward  into  a 
spiritual  world  which  we  may  not  be  able  to 
realise,  but  which,  like  nature,  is  compromised 
somehow  by  our  sin,  and  entangled  in  our 
responsibility  to  God.  For  these  higher  beings, 
then,  as  well  as  for  man,  Christ  has  done  His 
reconciling  work,  and  when  it  is  finished  they 
as  well  as  we  will  be  gathered  together  in  one 
in  Him. 

It  would  perhaps  be  going  too  far  to  say 
that  there  is  nothing  in  this,  and  that  no  such 
ideas  ever  floated  vaguely  before  the  apostle's 
imagination.  The  people  to  whom  he  wrote 
believed  in  'thrones  and  dominions  and  princi- 
palities and  powers ' ;  and  although  there  is  a 
touch  of  indifference,  not  to  say  scorn,  in  some 
of  his  own  allusions  to  the  high-sounding  names 
— for  instance,  in  Ephesians  i.  22  f. — they  had 
some  sort  of  reality  for  him  too.  But  if  he  had 
definitely  held  such  a  view  as  has  just  been 
expounded,  the  probabilities  are  that  it  would 
have  told  more  decidedly  on  his  thinking,  and 
found  less  ambiguous  expression  in  his  writings. 
At  best  it  could  belong  only  to  the  quasi- 
poetical  representation  of  his  faith,  not  to  the 
gospel  which  he  preached  on  the  basis  of  ex- 
perience, nor  to  the  theology  or  philosophy 
which  was  its  intellectual  expression.  And 
when  we  look  at  the  epistles  of  the  Captivity 


ABSOLUTENESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY     199 

generally,  our  minds  are  rather  drawn  in  another 
direction.  The  enlarged  scope  of  the  work  of 
reconciliation  is  part  of  that  expansion,  so  to 
speak,  of  Christ's  person  from  a  historical  to 
a  cosmical  significance  which  is  characteristic 
of  these  epistles  as  a  whole.  Christ  is  no 
longer  a  second  Adam,  the  head  of  a  new 
humanity,  as  in  the  earlier  letters  (Rom.  v.  12  ff., 
I  Cor.  XV.  45  ff.) ;  He  is  the  centre  of  the  uni- 
verse. He  is  a  Person  so  great  that  St.  Paul  is 
obliged  to  reconstruct  His  whole  world  around 
Him.  He  is  the  primary  source  of  all  creation, 
its  principle  of  unity,  its  goal  (Col.  i.  15  ff.). 
In  consistency  with  this,  the  meaning  and 
efficacy  of  what  He  has  done  extends  through  it 
all.  His  Person  and  work  have  absolute  signi- 
ficance; wherever  we  have  to  speak  of  revela- 
tion or  of  reconciliation,  in  whatever  world,  in 
whatever  relations,  it  is  of  Him  we  have  to 
speak.  Whether  St.  Paul  would  have  presented 
this  genuinely  Christian  truth  to  his  imagination 
in  the  somewhat  fantastic  fashion  just  explained 
may  be  more  or  less  doubtful ;  in  any  case  it 
is  of  little  consequence.  What  is  of  consequence 
is  his  conviction  that  in  Jesus  Christ  dwelt  all 
the  fulness  of  the  Godhead— all  that  makes  God 
in  the  full  sense  of  the  term  God — bodily,  that 
is,  in  organic  unity  and  completeness ;  and  that 
the  same  completeness  and  finality  belong  to 
His    reconciling    work,      'The    blood    of    His 


260  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

cross':  it  is  in  this  we  find  the  resolution  of 
all  discords,  not  only  in  the  life  of  man,  but 
in  the  universe  at  large.  It  is  in  this  we  see 
a  divine  love  which  does  not  shrink  from  taking 
on  itself  to  the  uttermost  the  moral  responsi- 
bility for  the  world  it  has  made,  and  for  all  the 
orders  of  being  in  it,  and  all  their  failures  and 
fortunes.  The  eternal  truth  of  this  different 
ages  and  circumstances  will  picture  to  them- 
selves in  different  ways ;  all  we  need  to  care 
for  is  that  ways  of  picturing  it  which  are  un- 
congenial to  our  imaginations  do  not  deprive  us 
of  the  truth  itself. 

It  is  a  smaller  but  not  a  less  attractive  applica- 
tion of  the  idea  of  reconciliation,  as  accomplished 
in  Christ's  death,  when  we  find  it  in  the  second 
chapter  of  Ephesians  as  the  reconciliation  of  Jew 
and  Gentile  in  the  one  body  of  Christ  (vv.  1 1-22). 
The  application  may  to  us  seem  casual,  but  this 
is  one  of  the  great  thoughts  of  St.  Paul.  '  Is 
God  a  God  of  Jews  only  ? '  he  asks  in  Rom.  iii.  29 
as  he  contemplates  Christ  set  forth  as  a  propitia- 
tion in  His  blood.  Is  the  great  appeal  of  the 
Cross  one  which  is  intelligible  only  to  men  of  a 
single  race,  or  to  which  only  those  who  have  had 
a  particular  training  can  respond  ?  On  the  con- 
trary, there  is  nothing  in  the  world  so  universally 
intelligible  as  the  Cross ;  and  hence  it  is  the 
meeting-place  not  only  of  God  and  man,  but  of 
all  races  and  conditions  of  men  with  each  other. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  201 

There  is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  male  nor  female, 
bond  nor  free,  there.  The  Cross  is  the  basis  of 
a  universal  religion,  and  has  in  it  the  hope  of 
a  universal  peace.  But  of  all  Christian  truths 
which  are  confessed  in  words,  this  is  that  which 
is  most  outrageously  denied  in  deed.  There  is 
not  a  Christian  church  nor  a  Christian  nation  in 
the  world  which  believes  heartily  in  the  Atone- 
ment as  the  extinction  of  privilege,  and  the 
levelling  up  of  all  men  to  the  same  possibility 
of  life  in  Christ,  to  the  same  calling  to  be  saints. 
The  spirit  of  privilege,  in  spite  of  the  Cross, 
is  obstinately  rooted  everywhere  even  among 
Christian  men. 

An  examination  of  the  pastoral  epistles,  quite 
apart  from  the  critical  questions  that  have  been 
raised  as  to  their  authorship,  does  not  introduce 
us  to  any  new  ideas  on  our  subject.  It  is  at 
all  events  genuinely  Pauline  when  we  read  in 
I  Tim.  ii.  5,  'There  is  one  God,  one  Mediator 
also  between  God  and  man.  Himself  man,  Christ 
Jesus,  who  gave  Himself  a  ransom  for  all 
{avTikurpov  vnep  Trdvrcov)'  It  is  the  ransoming 
death  in  virtue  of  which  Jesus  does  mediate 
between  God  and  sinners ;  but  for  it,  He  would 
not  be  a  mediator  in  any  sense  relevant  to  man's 
situation.  This,  as  Holtzmann  has  noticed,  is 
in  harmony  with  the  use  of  *  mediator '  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  There  also  Jesus  is 
Mediator,   but    it    is    of   a    covenant   which    is 


202  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

characterised  as  Kpeirrcov,  kuivij,  and  vea ;  He  is 
the  means  through  which,  at  the  cost  of  His 
death,  sinners  enter  into  the  perfect  religious 
relation  to  God.  But  though  this  idea  is  found 
in  Hebrews,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  unpauline 
in  itself,  nor  even  (though  avriXvrpov  is  found 
here  only  in  the  New  Testament)  that  it  is 
unpaulip.e  in  expression.  The  dying  with  Christ, 
referred  to  in  2  Tim.  ii.  6,  is  akin  rather  to  what 
we  have  found  in  2  Cor.  chs.  i.  and  iv.  than  to 
Romans  vi. :  it  is  a  share  in  martyr  sufferings 
which  is  meant,  not  formally  the  mortification  of 
the  old  man.  In  Titus  there  are  two  passages 
which  require  to  be  mentioned.  The  first  is  in 
ch.  ii.  14,  where  we  read  of 'our  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ,  who  gave  Himself  for  us  that  He  might 
redeem  us  from  all  unrighteousness  {avofiia<i)  and 
purify  for  Himself  a  people  of  His  own,  zealous 
of  good  works.'  It  is  somewhat  peddling  to 
suggest,  as  Holtzmann  does,^  that  Paul  would 
rather  have  said  we  were  redeemed  from  vofio^ 
than  from  avo/iia,  and  that  even  in  touching  on 
a  Pauline  thought  an  unpauline  expression  is 
used  {XvTpaxnjTat  for  '  redeem ').  The  whole 
expression,  XvTpovaOai  as  well  as  avofiia,  comes 
from  Ps.  cxxx.  8,  and  St.  Paul  might  have  liberty 
to  quote  the  Old  Testament  as  well  as  anybody 
else.  Nevertheless,  the  general  impression  one 
gets  from  the  pastoral  epistles  is,  that  as  a 
'  Neut.  Theologie,  ii.  265  L 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  203 

doctrine  Christianity  was  now  complete  and 
could  be  taken  for  granted ;  it  is  not  in  process 
of  being  hammered  out,  as  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  ;  there  is  nothing  creative  in  the  state- 
ment of  it;  and  it  is  the  combination  of  fulness 
and  of  something  not  unlike  formalism  that 
raises  doubts  as  to  the  authorship.  St.  Paul 
was  inspired,  but  the  writer  of  these  epistles  is 
sometimes  only  orthodox.  One  feels  this  with 
reference  to  the  second  passage  in  Titus  (iii.  4  ff.): 
'When  the  kindness  of  God  our  Saviour,  and  His 
love  toward  man,  appeared,  not  by  works  done 
in  righteousness  which  we  did  ourselves,  but 
according  to  His  mercy  He  saved  us,  through 
the  washing  of  regeneration  and  renewing  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  which  He  poured  out  upon  us  richly 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour:  that,  being 
justified  by  His  grace,  we  might  be  made  heirs 
according  to  the  hope  of  eternal  life.'  St.  Paul 
could  no  doubt  have  said  all  this,  but  probably 
he  would  have  said  it  otherwise,  and  not  all  at 
a  time.  In  any  case,  it  adds  nothing  to  the  New 
Testament  teaching  on  the  death  of  Christ  as  we 
have  already  examined  it. 


ao4  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  in  many  ways 
one  of  the  most  perplexing  books  of  the 
New  Testament.  It  stands  quite  alone  and  is 
peculiarly  independent,  yet  it  has  affinities  with 
almost  every  strain  of  thought  to  be  found  else- 
where in  primitive  Christianity,  and  points  of 
historical  attachment  for  it  have  been  sought 
all  round  the  compass.^  Thus  there  are  those 
who  think  its  true  line  of  descent  is  to  be  traced 
to  James,  Cephas,  and  John — the  three  apostles 
who  seemed  to  be  pillars  in  the  mother  church 
of  Jerusalem.  It  is  the  last  and  finest  product 
of  that  type  of  Christian  mind  which  we  see  at 
work  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Acts.  Perhaps 
this  was  the  feeling  of  the  person  to  whom 
the  address — 7r/>09  'E/9/?atou? — is  due.  When 
we  examine  the  epistle  closely,  however,  we 
discover  that  there  is  very  little  to  be  found  in 
this  direction  to  explain  its  peculiarities.    Others, 

'  For  a  full  discussion  on  this  point,  see  HoUznuinn,  Alrw/. 
Tktolt(gUt  ii.  aSl  ff. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS      205 

again,  would  trace  it  to  the  school  of  SL  Paul. 
This,  no  doubt,  has  a  greater  plausibility.  Dis- 
counting altogether  the  alleged  Pauline  author- 
ship, the  epistle  has  many  points  of  contact  with 
St.  Paul  in  language,  and  some  in  thought.  But 
we  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  fact  that 
where  the  language  coincides  with  St.  Paul's,  the 
thought  does  not ;  and  that  where  the  minds  of 
the  authors  meet,  their  language  is  independent. 
Thus  both  St.  Paul  and  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews 
speak  of  the  law,  of  what  the  law  cannot  do 
(Rom.  viii.  3  ;  Heb.  x.  l),  of  the  superseding  of 
the  law  (Rom.  x.  4;  Heb.  vii.  12),  of  faith 
(Rom.  iv. ;  Heb.  xi.),  of  a  righteousness  accord- 
ing to  faith  (Rom.  i.  17 ;  Heb.  xi.  7),  and  so 
on  ;  but  when  they  use  the  same  words  they 
do  not  mean  the  same  thing.  The  law  to  St.  Paul 
is  mainly  the  moral  law,  embodying  God's  re- 
quirements from  man ;  in  this  epistle,  it  is  the 
religious  constitution  under  which  Israel  lived, 
and  which  gave  it  a  certain  though  an  imperfect 
access  to  God.  In  St.  Paul  and  in  this  epistle  alike 
the  law  is  superseded  in  the  Christian  religion, 
but  the  relation  between  them  is  differently 
defined  in  the  two  cases.  St.  Paul  defines  law  and 
gospel  mainly  by  contrast;  in  Hebrews  they 
are  set  in  a  more  positive  relation  to  one  another. 
It  used  to  be  life  under  external  statutory 
authority,  now  it  is  life  under  inspiration,  and 
the  two  are  mutually  exclusive — such  is  St  Paul's 


2o6  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

conception :  see  Romans  vi.  and  2  Cor.  iii.  It 
used  to  be  life  under  the  shadowy,  the  unreal, 
that  which  could  bring  nothing  to  perfection ; 
now  it  is  life  under  the  real,  the  eternal,  that 
which  makes  perfect  for  ever ;  the  shadow  is 
abandoned,  because  the  coming  good  which  cast 
it  is  here :  see  Hebrews  vii.-x.  No  doubt  such 
contrasts  as  this  (between  St.  Paul  and  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews)  require  qualification,  but  broadly 
they  are  true,  and  they  could  be  illustrated  at 
many  other  points.  At  the  present  moment  the 
favourite  tendency  among  critics  is  to  explain 
the  peculiarities  of  the  epistle  by  attaching  it 
neither  to  the  primitive  Christianity  of  Jerusalem, 
nor  in  the  first  instance  to  the  characteristic 
thoughts  of  St.  Paul  (though  both  of  course  are 
implied),  but  to  the  quasi-philosophical  mind  of 
Alexandrian  Judaism.  It  is  there  we  find  the 
contrast  of  seen  and  unseen,  of  sensible  and 
intelligible,  of  this  world  and  the  world  to  come, 
of  the  transitory  and  the  abiding,  of  earth  and 
heaven,  of  which  this  epistle  makes  so  much ; 
and  there  also  the  Xoyot,  which  mediates  between 
God  and  the  world,  is  presented  in  many  of  the 
aspects  {e.£:  as  Intercessor,  as  Mediator,  as  High 
Priest)  in  which  Jesus  figures  here.  But  here 
again  the  differences  outweigh  the  resemblances. 
The  Son  of  God  does  exercise  in  this  epistle 
many  of  the  functions  which  in  Philo  are  assigned 
to  the  Logos ;  but  in  order  to  exercise  them  He 


HEBREWS  INTENSELY  THEOLOGICAL   207 

must  assume  human  nature  and  pass  through 
all  human  experience — conceptions  which  are  a 
direct  contradiction  of  all  that  Logos  in  Philo 
means.  Evidently  the  author  of  this  epistle, 
whatever  his  intellectual  affinities,  combined  with 
an  extraordinary  sensitiveness  to  all  that  was 
being  thought  and  said  in  the  world  in  which 
he  lived  an  extraordinary  power  of  holding  fast 
his  own  thoughts,  of  living  in  his  own  mind, 
and  letting  it  work  along  its  own  lines. 

Of  all  New  Testament  writers  he  is  the  most 
theological  —  that  is,  he  is  most  exclusively 
occupied  with  presenting  Christianity  as  the 
final  and  absolute  religion ;  not  a  religion,  in 
the  sense  in  which  it  might  concede  a  legitimate 
place  to  others,  but  religion  simpliciUr,  because 
it  does  perfectly  what  all  religion  aims  to  do. 
This  is  what  is  expressed  in  his  favourite  word 
atft)vto9(eternal).  St.  John  in  his  gospel  and  epistles 
uses  this  word  twenty-three  times,  but  invariably 
to  qualify  life,  and  with  him  it  is  rather  the 
combination  than  the  adjective  which  is  charac- 
teristic. But  in  Hebrews  ala>vio<:  is  used  far 
more  significantly,  though  less  frequently.  Jesus 
is  author  of  'eternal '  salvation  (v.  9),  t.e.  of  final 
salvation,  which  has  no  peril  beyond ;  all  that 
salvation  can  mean  is  secured  by  Him.  The 
elements  of  Christianity  include  preaching  on 
'eternal'  judgment  (vi.  2),  t'.e.  a  judgment  which 
has  the  character  of  finality,  from  which  there 


2o8  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

is  no  appeal,  beyond  which  there  is  no  fear  of 
no  hope.  Christ  has  obtained  'eternal'  redemp- 
tion for  us  (ix.  12):  not  a  redemption  like  that 
which  was  annually  achieved  for  Israel,  and 
which  had  to  be  annually  repeated,  as  though 
its  virtue  faded  away,  but  a  redemption  the 
validity  of  which  abides  for  ever.  Christ  has 
offered  Himself  through  *  eternal' spirit  (ix.  14), 
t.e.  in  Christ's  sacrifice  we  see  the  final  revela- 
tion of  what  God  is,  that  behind  which  there  is 
nothing  in  God  ;  so  that  the  religion  which  rests 
on  that  sacrifice  rests  on  the  ultimate  truth  of  the 
divine  nature,  and  can  never  be  shaken.  Those 
who  are  called  receive  the  promise  of  the 
'eternal*  inheritance  (ix.  15):  not  an  earthly 
Canaan,  in  which  they  are  strangers  and  pilgrims, 
and  from  which  they  may  be  exiled,  but  the 
city  which  has  the  foundations,  from  which  God's 
people  go  no  more  out.  And  finally,  the  blood 
of  Christ  is  the  blood  of  an  '  eternal '  covenant 
(xiii.  20),  i.e.  in  the  death  of  Christ  a  religious 
relation  is  constituted  between  God  and  men 
which  has  the  character  of  finality.  God,  if  it 
may  be  so  expressed,  has  spoken  His  last  word; 
He  has  nothing  in  reserve ;  the  foundation  has 
been  laid  of  the  kingdom  which  can  never  be 
removed.  It  is  this  conception  of  absoluteness 
or  finality  in  everything  Christian  which  domi- 
nates the  book.  The  conception,  of  course,  is 
involved  in  all  Christian  experience,  but  to  make 


WESTCOTT  ON  HEBREWS  209 

it  as  explicit  as  it  is  in  this  epistle  does  not 
come  naturally  to  every  one.  There  are  minds 
to  which  a  less  reflective  religion  seems  warmer 
and  more  congenial :  they  miss  in  a  writing  like 
this  the  intimacy  and  glow  which  pervade  the 
epistles  of  St.  Paul.  Those  in  whom  theological 
interest  preponderates  over  religious  may  call 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  the  high  water-mark 
of  inspiration  ;  those  whose  religion  makes  them 
averse  to  theology  can  call  it  the  high  water- 
mark of  uninspired  writing. 

Speaking  generally,  the  epistle  may  be  said  to 
give  a  description  of  the  Person  and  Work  of 
Christ  as  constituting  the  perfect  religion  for 
men,  and  to  define  this  religion  in  relation  to  the 
ancient  religion  of  the  Jews  as  embodied  in 
the  Tabernacle  or  Temple  service.  Curiously 
enough,  the  Person  and  Work  of  Christ  thus 
interpreted  have  been  looked  at,  so  to  speak, 
from  both  ends.  Some  theologians,  of  whom 
Westcott  may  be  taken  as  a  type,  begin  at  the 
beginning,  or  rather  at  chap.  i.  3.  They  start 
with  the  pre-existent,  the  eternal  Son  of  God. 
They  point  to  what  He  essentially  is — the  bright- 
ness of  the  Father's  glory  and  the  express  image 
of  His  substance.  They  point  to  His  providential 
action — He  bears  or  guides  all  things  by  the 
word  of  His  power.  They  point  to  the  work  He 
did  as  incarnate — He  made  purgation  of  sins. 
They  point  to  the  exaltation  which  followed— 

O 


2IO  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

He  sat  down  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty 
in  the  Heavens.  And  then  they  draw  the 
general  conclusion  that  what  Christ  did,  accord- 
ing to  the  epistle,  was  to  fulfil  man's  destiny 
under  the  conditions  of  the  fall.  That  destiny, 
it  is  assumed,  He  would  have  fulfilled  in  any  case. 
The  incarnation  is  part  of  the  original  plan  of 
the  world  ;  only,  in  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
the  case  in  hand — that  is,  under  the  conditions 
of  the  fall — the  incarnation  had  to  be  modified 
into  an  atonement.  This  is  one  way  of  con- 
struing the  writer's  ideas.  Another  is  repre- 
sented by  writers  like  Seeberg,  who  begins,  if  one 
may  say  so,  at  the  end.  The  Christ  of  the 
author  is  essentially  Christ  the  High  Priest,  in 
the  heavenly  sanctuary,  mediating  between  God 
and  men,  securing  for  sinful  men  access  to  God 
and  fellowship  with  Him.  Christ  exercises  His 
High  Priestly  function  in  heaven,  but  it  rests 
upon  the  death  which  He  died  on  earth. 
Though  Seeberg  does  not  include  Christ's  death 
in  His  priestly  ministry,  he  frankly  admits  that 
His  priestly  ministry  is  based  on  His  death,  and 
that  but  for  His  death  He  could  not  be  a  priest 
at  all.  Hence  his  argument  runs  in  exactly  the 
opposite  direction  from  Westcott's.  Christ  is 
essentially  a  priest,  the  work  of  bringing  sinners 
into  fellowship  with  God  is  essentially  the  work 
He  has  to  do,  and  the  work  He  does.  It  is  in 
that  work  alone  that  we  know  Him.    But  to  do  it 


SEEBE»RG  ON  HEBREWS  an 

He  had  to  die,  and  in  order  to  die  He  had  to  have 
a  body  prepared  for  Him,  i.e.  He  had  to  become 
incarnate  (ch.  x.  5).  It  is  not  the  incarnation 
which  is  taken  for  granted,  and  the  atonement 
which  in  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  man's  case 
is  wrought  into  it  or  wrought  out  of  it  to  meet  an 
emergency ;  it  is  the  actual  fact  of  an  atonement 
and  a  reconciling  priestly  ministry  which  is  made 
the  foundation  of  everything ;  the  incarnation  is 
defined  solely  by  relation  to  it.  The  atonement, 
and  the  priestly  or  reconciling  ministry  of  Christ, 
are  the  end,  to  which  the  incarnation  is  relative 
as  the  means.  That  this  last  is  the  view  of  the 
epistle  and  of  the  New  Testament  in  general  I 
do  not  doubt :  it  is  the  only  view  which  has  an 
experimental,  as  opposed  to  a  speculative,  basis ; 
and  I  venture  to  say  that  the  other  shifts  the 
centre  of  gravity  in  the  New  Testament  so  dis- 
astrously as  to  make  great  parts  of  it,  and  these 
most  vital  parts,  unintelligible.  One  could  not 
go  to  the  New  Testament  with  a  more  mislead- 
ing schematism  in  his  mind  than  that  which  is 
provided  by  the  conception  of  the  incarnation, 
and  its  relation  to  the  atonement,  to  which  West- 
cott's  influence  has  given  currency  in  many 
circles.  But  leaving  this  larger  question  on  one 
side,  we  may  start  with  the  fact  that  both  schools 
of  interpreters  meet  in  the  middle,  and  find  the 
real  content  of  the  epistle,  religious  and  theo- 
logical, in  what  it  has  to  say  of  the  historical 


2  13  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Christ.  And  that,  beyond  a  doubt,  is  concen- 
trated in  what  it  has  to  say  of  His  death.  It 
was  with  'the  suffering  of  death'  in  view  that 
He  became  incarnate  ;  it  is  because  of  'the 
suffering  of  death  '  that  He  is  crowned  with  that 
glory  and  honour  in  which  He  appears  in  the 
presence  of  God  on  our  behalf.  Here  then  we 
come  to  our  proper  subject  again,  and  may  ask, 
as  in  the  case  of  St.  Paul,  in  what  relations  the 
death  of  Christ  is  defined  by  the  writer  so  as  to 
bring  out  its  meaning. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  defined  by  relation  to 
God,  and  especially,  as  in  St.  Paul,  by  relation 
to  His  love.  It  is  by  the  grace  of  God  that 
Jesus  tastes  death  for  every  man  (ii.  9).  God  is 
not  conceived  in  this  epistle,  or  in  any  part  of 
the  New  Testament,  as  a  malignant  or  hostile 
being  who  has  to  be  won  by  gifts  to  show  his 
goodwill  to  man  :  whatever  the  death  of  Christ 
is  or  does,  it  is  and  does  in  the  carrying  out  of 
His  purpose.  It  is  the  grace  of  God  to  sinners 
which  is  demonstrated  in  it.  This  is  involved 
also  in  two  other  ideas  emphasised  in  the 
epistle.  One  is  the  idea  that  no  man  takes  the 
honour  of  priesthood  to  himself  of  his  own 
motion  :  he  must  be  called  of  God,  as  Aaron  was 
(v.  4).  Christ  has  had  this  call  ;  we  hear  it  in 
the  iioth  Psalm,  which  He  Himself  applied  to 
Himself  (Mark  xii.  35  ff.):  'Thou  art  a  priest  for 
ever,  after  the  order  of  Melchisedec'     It  is  true 


OBEDIENCE  OF  CHRIST  213 

that  the  priest  represents  the  people  toward 
God,  but  he  can  only  do  so  by  God's  appoint- 
ment, and  consequently  it  is  a  work  of  God 
which  he  does,  a  gracious  work,  in  which  he  is 
not  persuading  God,  as  it  were,  against  His  will, 
but  on  the  contrary  carrying  out  His  will  for  the 
good  of  men.  The  other  idea  used  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  Christ's  work,  and  especially  of  His 
death,  which  connects  them  in  a  similar  way 
with  God,  is  the  idea  of  obedience.  Jesus, 
though  He  were  Son,  yet  learned  obedience 
through  the  things  which  He  suffered  (v.  8). 
When  He  appeared  in  the  body  which  God  had 
prepared  for  Him,  it  was  with  the  words  on  His 
lips, '  Lo,  I  come  to  do  Thy  will,  O  God '  (x.  7). 
There  is  nothing  in  Christ's  life  and  death  of 
irresponsibility  or  adventure.  It  is  all  obedience, 
and  therefore  it  is  all  revelation.  We  see  God  in 
it  because  it  is  not  His  own  will  but  the  will  of 
the  Father  which  it  accomplished.  Even  when 
we  come  to  consider  its  relation  to  sin,  this  must 
be  borne  in  mind.  Atonement  is  not  something 
contrived,  as  it  were,  behind  the  Father's  back  ; 
it  is  the  Father's  way  of  making  it  possible  for 
the  sinful  to  have  fellowship  with  Him.  The 
author  introduces  one  idea,  not  very  easy  to 
define,  in  this  connection.  In  speaking  of  the 
actual  course  of  Christ  in  life  and  death,  he  says, 
*  It  became  Him  {eirpeirev  yhp  avTw)  for  whom 
are  all  things  and  through  whom  are  all  things, 


214  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

in  bringing  many  sons  unto  glory,  to  nnake  the 
Captain  of  their  salvation  perfect  through  suffer- 
ings'  (ii.  lo).  What  enpeTrev  suggests  is  not  so 
much  the  kind  of  necessity  we  have  found  in 
other  places  in  the  New  Testament  as  moral 
congruity  or  decorum.  Suffering  and  death  are 
our  lot ;  it  is  congruous  with  God's  nature — we 
can  feel,  so  to  speak,  the  moral  propriety  of  it — 
when  He  makes  suffering  and  death  the  lot  of 
Him  who  is  to  be  our  Saviour.  He  would  not 
be  perfect  in  the  character  or  part  of  Saviour  if 
He  did  not  have  this  experience.  What  this 
suggests  is  the  interpretation  of  Christ's  death 
by  moral  aesthetics  rather  than  by  moral  law, 
by  a  rule  to  be  apprehended  in  feeling  rather 
than  in  conscience.  It  is  moving  and  impressive, 
this  action  in  congruity  with  God's  nature  and 
our  state,  whether  we  see  a  more  inevitable 
necessity  for  it  or  not.  In  all  these  ways,  at  all 
events,  the  writer  attaches  Christ's  death  to  the 
grace,  the  will,  and  the  character  of  God ;  and  in 
all  these  ways,  therefore,  he  warns  us  against 
setting  that  death  and  God  in  any  antagonism 
to  each  other. 

But  besides  defining  it  by  relation  to  God,  the 
writer  defines  Christ's  death  also  by  relation  to 
sin.  At  the  very  beginning,  in  the  sublime 
sentence  in  which  He  introduces  the  Son,  His 
earthly  work  is  summed  up  in  the  phrase :  '  hav- 
ing made  purgation  of  sins '  (i.  3).     How  this  is 


ONE  SACRIFICE  FOR  SINS  315 

done,  he  does  not  tell  at  this  point,  but  the  sequel 
makes  it  indubitable.  It  was  done  by  His 
sacrificial  death.  So,  again,  he  speaks  of  Christ 
as  being  once  offered  to  bear  the  sins  of  many 
(ix.  28) ;  as  having  been  once  manifested  at  the 
end  of  the  world  to  put  away  sin  by  the  sacrifice 
of  Himself  (ix.  26) ;  as  being  a  merciful  and 
faithful  high  priest  in  our  relations  to  God  to 
make  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  people 
(ii.  17) ;  as  having  offered  one  sacrifice  for  sins 
for  ever,  and  having  perfected  for  ever  by  that 
sacrifice  those  who  are  being  sanctified  (x.  12-14). 
There  is  the  same  sacrificial  conception  in  all  the 
references  in  the  epistle  to  the  blood  of  Christ. 
He  entered  into  the  most  holy  place  with  (Sia) 
His  own  blood  (ix.  12).  The  blood  of  Christ  shall 
purge  your  conscience  from  dead  works  (ix.  14). 
We  have  boldness  to  enter  into  the  holiest  in  the 
blood  of  Jesus  (x.  19).  His  blood  is  the  blood  of 
the  covenant  with  which  we  are  sanctified,  and  to 
lapse  from  the  Christian  religion  is  to  be  guilty 
of  the  inconceivable,  the  unpardonable  sin,  of 
counting  that  blood  a  profane  thing  (x.  29).  In 
all  these  ways  the  death  of  Christ  is  defined  as  a 
sacrificial  death,  or  as  a  death  having  relation  to 
sin  :  the  two  things  are  one.  It  is  quite  possible 
to  lose  ourselves  here  by  trying  to  give  to  details 
in  the  sacrificial  language  of  the  epistle  an  im- 
portance which  they  will  not  bear.  The  writer 
refers  to  sacrifices  of  different  kinds  in  his  inter- 


2i6  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

pretation  of  the  death  of  Christ.  Sometimes  he 
speaks  of  it  in  connection  with  the  Old  Testa- 
ment sin  offerings;  at  others  in  connection  with 
the  covenant  sacrifices  at  Sinai,  on  which  the 
ancient  relation  of  God  to  His  people  was  based  ; 
more  than  all,  in  connection  with  the  annual 
sacrifices  on  the  great  day  of  atonement,  when 
the  earthly  sanctuary  was  purged  of  its  defile- 
ment, and  the  high  priest  entered  into  the  most 
holy  place,  representing  and  embodying  Israel's 
access  to  God  and  fellowship  with  Him.  But  no 
emphasis  is  laid  on  the  distinguishing  features 
of  these  various  sacrifices:  they  are  looked  at 
simply  in  the  expiatory  or  atoning  significance 
which  is  common  to  them  all.  They  represent  a 
divinely  appointed  way  of  dealing  with  sin,  in 
order  that  it  may  not  bar  fellowship  with  God  ; 
and  the  writer  thinks  of  them  broadly  in  this 
light.  I  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  belittle  this,  as 
is  sometimes  done,  and  to  say  with  Holtzmann 
that  the  convincing  power  of  the  writer's  argu- 
ments reaches  precisely  as  far  as  our  conviction 
of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Mosaic  cultus,  of  the 
atoning  power  of  sacrificial  blood,  and  of  the 
typical  significance  of  the  sacrificial  ritual ;  the 
tacit  assumption  being  that  in  regard  to  all  these 
things  rational  conviction  can  reach  but  a  very 
little  way.  As  we  have  seen  already,  the  death 
of  Christ  is  defined  by  relation  to  sin  in  many 
places  in  the  New  Testament  where  no  use,  at 
least  no  explicit  use,  is  made  of  sacrificial  phrase- 


PRIESTHOOD  IN  HEBREWS  217 

ology.  Such  phraseology  is  not  essential  either 
to  reach  or  to  express  the  truth  held  by  Christian 
faith  as  to  the  relation  of  Christ's  death  to  sia 
Neither  is  it  forced  by  the  author  of  the  epistle : 
he  only  expresses  by  means  of  it,  and  that,  as  we 
have  seen,  with  the  greatest  freedom,  the  convic- 
tion of  all  New  Testament  Christians,  that  in 
the  death  of  Christ  God  has  dealt  effectually  with 
the  world's  sin  for  its  removal.  It  is  easy  to  dis- 
parage too  lightly  what  Wellhausen  has  called 
the  pagan  element  in  the  religion  of  Israel ;  but 
it  is  probably  truer  to  hold  with  this  writer  that 
the  sacrificial  system  had  something  in  it  which 
trained  the  conscience  and  helped  man  to  feel 
and  to  express  spiritual  truths  for  which  he  had 
no  adequate  articulate  language. 

Important,  however,  as  his  reference  to  sacrifice 
may  be,  it  is  not  so  much  through  the  idea  of 
sacrifice  that  we  are  initiated  into  the  writer's 
mind  as  through  the  idea  of  priesthood.  Now 
in  relation  to  the  priest  the  various  conceptions 
of  sacrifice  are  unified ;  the  distinctions  of  sin 
offerings,  burnt  offerings,  peace  offerings,  and  so 
forth,  disappear ;  sacrifice  is  reduced  to  this — it 
is  the  characteristic  function  of  the  priest,  the 
indispensable  means  to  the  fulfilment  of  his 
calling.  A  priest  is  the  essential  figure  in  religion 
as  it  is  conceived  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  ; 
when  the  priesthood  is  changed  there  is  neces- 
sarily also  a  change  of  law — the  whole  religious 
constitution  is  altered  (vii.  12);  in  other  words, 


2i8  THE  DEATH  Oi-  CHRIST 

the  priest  determines  what  the  religion  is.  Hence 
if  we  wish  to  know  what  Christianity  is,  in  which 
Christ  is  priest,  we  must  investigate  the  priest- 
hood as  it  is  discharged  by  him. 

The  priest's  function,  speaking  generally,  is  to 
establish  and  to  represent  the  fellowship  of  God 
and  man.  That  fellowship  must  exist,  it  must 
be  incorporated  and  made  visible,  in  the  priest's 
own  person ;  and  through  his  ministry  it  must 
be  put  within  reach  of  the  people  for  whom  he 
acts  as  priest.  Through  his  ministry  they  must 
be  put  in  a  position  to  draw  near  to  God  them- 
selves, to  worship,  to  have  fellowship  with  God ; 
in  a  word,  to  become  God's  people.  If  we  ask 
why  a  priest  and  a  priestly  work  of  mediation 
are  necessary,  why  men  cannot  immediately  and 
in  their  own  right,  as  it  were,  draw  near  to  God, 
the  answer  is  self-evident.  It  is  because  their 
sin  stands  in  the  way,  and  cannot  be  ignored. 
In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  as  everywhere  in 
the  New  Testament,  sin  is  a  problem,  and  the 
burden  of  the  book  is  that  God  has  dealt  with 
the  problem  in  a  way  answering  to  its  magnitude. 
He  has  instituted  a  priesthood  to  deal  with  it. 
He  has  appointed  His  Son  a  priest  with  this 
very  end  in  view,  that  he  should  make  propitia- 
tion for  the  sins  of  the  people  (ii.  17).  If  we  ask 
how  this  priest  deals  with  sin  in  order  to  make 
propitiation  for  it,  the  answer,  as  has  already 
been  observed,  is  given  in  Old  Testament  terma 


THE  PRIEST'S  FUNCTIONS  919 

He  deals  with  it  by  the  way  of  sacrifice.  This 
is  the  only  method  of  propitiation,  known  to  the 
Old  Testament,  which  is  of  a  piece  with  the 
idea  of  priesthood.  It  is  irrelevant  to  argue,  as 
is  sometimes  done  by  persons  who  are  anxious 
that  the  grace  of  the  gospel  should  not  be  abused, 
that  the  Old  Testament  only  provides  for  the 
propitiation  of  certain  kinds  of  sin,  and  these  not 
the  more  serious  ;  such  thoughts  are  not  present  to 
the  writer's  mind.  Propitiation  must  be  made  for 
sin,  if  sinful  men  are  to  have  fellowship  with  God 
at  all ;  the  only  propitiation  known  to  scripture, 
as  made  by  a  priest,  is  that  which  is  made  through 
sacrifice  (apart  from  shedding  of  blood  there  is 
no  remission,  ix.  22) ;  and  the  writer  has  no 
conception  beforehand  of  sins  with  which  the 
priest  and  the  sacrifice  present  to  his  mind  are 
unable  to  deal.  He  does  recognise  the  possibility 
that  men  may  contemn  the  gospel  altogether, 
and  even  after  they  have  known  its  power,  may 
trample  under  foot  the  blood  of  the  covenant 
with  which  they  were  sanctified,  and  so  commit 
a  sin  for  which  in  the  nature  of  the  case  there 
can  be  no  further  propitiation — as  he  puts  it,  for 
which  there  is  no  more  a  sacrifice  in  reserve 
(x.  26);  but  that  is  another  matter.  His  position, 
speaking  generally,  is  that  in  Christ  and  His 
death  we  have  a  priest  and  a  sacrifice  capable 
of  dealing  effectively  with  sin  as  the  barrier 
between  God  and  man,  and  actually  dealing  with 


220  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

it  in  such  a  way  that  in  despite  of  it  God  has 
a  worshipping  people  among  sinful  men. 

Can  we,  now,  get  any  way  under  the  surface 
here?  Sacrifice  is  not  a  familiar  nor  a  self- 
interpreting  idea  to  us,  whatever  it  may  have 
been  to  the  author  and  to  those  whom  he 
addressed  ;  can  we  penetrate  or  explain  it  at  all, 
so  as  to  make  intelligible  to  ourselves  any  relation 
which  the  death  of  Christ  had  to  sin,  or  to  the 
will  of  God  in  regard  to  sin  ? 

Sometimes  the  attempt  is  made  to  do  this  by 
looking  immediately  at  the  effect  of  Christ's  work 
in  the  souls  of  men,  and  deducing  its  relation  to 
sin,  as  a  secondary  thing,  from  this.  The  epistle, 
of  course,  does  not  ignore  the  effect  of  Christ  and 
His  sacrifice  upon  men  :  it  has,  indeed,  a  variety 
of  words  to  describe  it.  Sometimes  the  word 
employed  is  aryid^eiv  (to  sanctify).  The  priestly 
Christ  and  His  people  are  He  who  sanctifies, 
and  they  who  are  sanctified  (ii.  ii).  Christians 
have  been  sanctified  through  the  offering  of 
the  body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all  (x.  lo). 
By  one  offering  He  has  perfected  for  ever 
those  who  are  being  sanctified  (x.  14).  It  was 
Christ's  object  in  dying  to  sanctify  the  people 
through  His  own  blood  (xiii.  12).  There  has  been 
much  discussion  as  to  what  sanctification  in  such 
passages  means,  and  especially  as  to  whether 
the  word  is  to  be  taken  in  a  religious  or  an 
ethical   sense.     Probably   the   distinction    would 


SANCTIFICATION  IN  HEBREWS       aai 

not  have  been  clear  to  the  writer ;  but  one  thing 
is  certain,  it  is  not  to  be  taken  in  the  sense  of 
Protestant  theology.  The  people  were  sanctified, 
not  when  they  were  raised  to  moral  perfection — 
a  conception  utterly  strange  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  to  the  old — but  when,  through  the 
annulling  of  their  sin  by  sacrifice,  they  had  been 
constituted  into  a  people  of  God,  and  in  the 
person  of  their  representative  had  access  to  His 
presence.  The  word  ayid^eiv,  in  short,  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  corresponds  as  nearly 
as  possible  to  the  Pauline  hiKacovv ;  the  sancti- 
fication  of  the  one  writer  is  the  justification  of 
the  other  ;  and  the  irpoa-ayayr)  or  access  to  God, 
which  St.  Paul  emphasises  as  the  primary  bless- 
ing of  justification  (Rom.  v.  2;  Eph.  ii.  18,  iii.  12), 
appears  everywhere  in  Hebrews  as  the  primary 
religious  act  of  '  drawing  near '  to  God  through 
the  great  High  Priest  (iv.  16,  vii.  19-25,  x.  22). 
It  seems  fair  then  to  argue  that  the  immediate 
effect  of  Christ's  death  upon  men  is  religious 
rather  than  ethical ;  in  technical  language,  it 
alters  their  relation  to  God,  or  is  conceived  as 
doing  so,  rather  than  their  character.  Their 
character,  too,  alters  eventually,  but  it  is  on 
the  basis  of  that  initial  and  primary  religious 
change ;  the  religious  change  is  not  a  result  of 
the  moral  one,  nor  an  unreal  abstraction  from  it. 

A  similar  result  follows  if  we  consider  another 
of  the  words  used  to  explain  the  effect  of  Christ's 


222  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

priestly  and  sacrificial  work  upon  men — the  word 
TeXetovv,  rendered  *to  make  perfect.'  It  is  widely 
used  in  the  epistle  in  other  connections.  Christ 
Himself  was  made  perfect  through  sufferings 
(ii.  lo)  ;  that  is,  He  was  made  all  that  a  high 
priest,  or  a  captain  of  salvation,  ought  to  be. 
It  does  not  mean  that  suffering  cured  Him  of 
moral  faults  ;  but  that  apart  from  suffering  and 
what  He  learned  in  it  He  would  not  have  been 
completely  fitted  for  His  character  of  represent- 
ing, and  succouring,  mortal  men.  So  again 
when  we  read,  the  law  made  nothing  perfect 
(vii.  19) ;  the  meaning  is,  that  under  the  ancient 
religion  of  Israel  nothing  reached  the  ideal.  The 
sanctuary  was  a  worldly  or  material  sanctuary 
(ix.  i);  the  priests  were  sinful  mortal  men,  ever 
passing  on  their  unsatisfactory  functions  to  their 
successors  (vii.  23) ;  the  sacrifices  were  of  irra- 
tional creatures — the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats, 
which  could  never  make  the  worshipper  perfect 
as  touching  the  conscience  (ix.  9);  that  is,  they 
could  never  completely  lift  the  load  from  within, 
and  give  him  irap'prjaia  and  joy  in  the  presence 
of  God ;  the  access  to  the  holiest  of  all  was 
not  abiding;  as  represented  in  the  High  Priestly 
ministry  of  the  day  of  atonement,  the  way  to 
God  was  open  only  for  a  moment,  and  then  shut 
again  (ix.  7  f.).  There  was  nothing  perfect  there, 
nothing  in  that  religious  constitution  which  could 
be   described  as  rekeioi'  or   aldiviov.     But  with 


PERFECTION  IN  HEBREWS  223 

Christ,  all  this  is  changed.  By  one  offering  He 
has  perfected  for  ever  those  who  are  being 
sanctified  (x.  14).  The  word  cannot  mean  that 
He  has  made  them  sinless,  in  the  sense  of  having 
freed  them  completely  from  all  the  power  of 
sin,  from  every  trace  of  its  presence ;  it  means 
obviously  that  He  has  put  them  into  the  ideal 
religious  relation  to  God.  Because  of  His  one 
offering,  their  sin  no  longer  comes  between  them 
and  God  in  the  very  least ;  it  does  not  exclude 
them  from  His  presence  or  intimidate  them  ;  they 
come  with  boldness  to  the  throne  of  grace ;  they 
draw  near  with  a  true  heart  and  in  full  assurance 
of  faith ;  they  have  an  ideal,  an  unimpeachable 
standing  before  God  as  His  people  (iv.  16,  x.  22). 
In  Pauline  language,  there  is  now  no  condem- 
nation ;  instead  of  standing  afar  off,  in  fear  and 
trembling,  they  have  access  to  the  Father  ;  they 
joy  in  God  through  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  through 
whom  they  have  received  the  atonement  (Rom. 
viii.  I,  v.  2-1 1). 

Once  more,  if  we  examine  the  passage  in  which 
the  verb  Kudapi^etv  is  used  to  express  the  result 
of  Christ's  work  in  relation  to  man,  we  shall  be 
led  to  the  same  conclusion.  It  is  in  ix.  14,  and 
occurs  in  the  sentence  contrasting  the  efficacy 
of  the  ancient  sacrifices  with  that  of  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ  '  For  if  the  blood  of  goats  and 
bulls  and  ashes  of  a  heifer  sprinkling  the  defiled 
sanctifies  to  the  purification  of  the  flesh,  how 


2  24  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

much  more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who 
through  eternal  spirit  offered  Himself  without 
spot  to  God,  purify  your  conscience  from  dead 
works  to  serve  the  living  God.'  The  Old  Testa- 
ment sacrifices  had  an  outward  efficacy;  they 
removed  such  defilements  as  excluded  a  man 
from  the  communion  of  Israel  with  God  in  its 
national  worship.  The  New  Testament  sacrifice 
has  an  inward  efficacy;  it  really  reaches  to  the 
conscience,  and  it  puts  the  man  in  a  position  to 
offer  religious  service  (Xarpeveiv)  to  a  living  God. 
In  some  way  it  neutralises  or  annuls  sin  so  that 
religious  approach  to  God  is  possible  in  spite  of  it. 
The  examination  of  these  words  justifies  us 
in  drawing  one  conclusion.  The  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  does  not  conceive  of  a 
regenerating,  or,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term, 
sanctifying,  effect  of  Christ's  death  upon  the  soul 
as  immediate  or  primary.  He  does  not  conceive 
it  as  directly  emancipating  the  soul  from  sin,  as 
an  immoral  power  operative  in  it ;  nor  does  he 
regard  this  experience  of  emancipation  as  the 
only  reality  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  It  is 
a  reality,  but  it  is  an  effect,  and  an  effect  to  be 
traced  to  a  cause.  That  cause  is  not  simply 
Christ's  death  ;  it  is  Christ's  death  as  a  reality 
capable  of  being  so  interpreted  as  to  yield  the 
rational  explanation  of  such  an  effect.  It  is 
often  argued  that  the  idea  of  an  antecedent 
relation    of    Christ's   death    to    sin — antecedent, 


CHRIST'S  FINISHED  WORK  225 

that  is,  to  the  emancipation  of  the  soul  from 
sin's  power — is  essentially  unreal,  nothing  more 
than  the  caput  mortuum  of  this  great  experience. 
This  is  certainly  not  the  view  of  the  writer  to  the 
Hebrews.  On  the  contrary,  he  has,  like  St.  Paul 
and  others  to  whom  reference  has  been,  and  will 
yet  be  made,  the  conception  of  a  finished  work  of 
Christ,  a  work  finished  in  His  death,  something 
done  in  regard  to  sin  once  for  all,  whether  any 
given  soul  responds  to  it  or  not.  As  he  puts  it 
at  the  beginning  of  the  epistle.  He  made  purga- 
tion of  sins — the  thing  was  done — before  He  sat 
i^own  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  in  the 
Heavens.  As  he  puts  it  later.  He  has  offered  one 
sacrifice  for  sins  for  ever,  and  by  the  one  offering 
He  has  brought  for  ever  into  the  perfect  relation 
to  God  those  who  are  being  sanctified.  And 
though  the  epistle  does  not  use  the  once  familiar 
language  about  the  risen  Saviour  pleading  the 
merits  of  His  sacrifice,  it  does  undoubtedly  repre- 
sent this  sacrifice,  offered  through  eternal  spirit, 
as  the  basis  on  which  the  eternal  priesthood  of 
Christ  is  exercised,  and  the  sinner's  access  to 
God  assured.  Now,  a  finished  work  of  Christ 
and  an  objective  atonement  are  the  same  thing, 
and  the  question  once  more  presents  itself:  What 
is  it,  in  Christ's  death,  which  gives  it  its  atoning 
power?  Why  is  it  that,  on  the  ground  of  this 
death,  God,  with  whom  evil  cannot  dwell,  allows 
sinners    unimpeded,    joyful,    assured    access    to 

P 


226  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Himself,  and  constitutes  them  a  people  of  His 
own? 

It  is  possible  to  answer  this  question  too 
vaguely.  It  is  too  vague  an  answer  when  we 
look  away  from  Christ's  death,  and  its  specific 
relation  to  sin,  and  emphasise  broadly  Christ's 
identification  of  Himself  with  us  as  laying  the 
basis  for  our  identification  of  ourselves  with 
Him,  in  which  acceptance  with  God  is  secured. 
No  doubt  the  epistle  does  give  prominence  to 
Christ's  identification  of  Himself  with  those  whose 
priest  He  is  to  become.  He  who  sanctifies  and 
they  who  are  being  sanctified — He  who  consti- 
tutes others  into  a  people  of  God,  and  they  who 
are  so  constituted — are  all  of  one  (ii.  ii).  He  is 
not  ashamed  to  call  them  brothers.  He  takes 
their  nature  on  Him,  becoming  with  them  a 
partaker  of  flesh  and  blood  (ii.  14).  He  takes 
their  experience  to  Himself,  being  tempted  in 
all  things  like  as  they  are  (iv.  15).  Even  in 
death  He  does  not  stand  aloof  from  them ;  He 
dies  because  they  have  to  die ;  He  dies  that 
through  death  He  may  destroy  him  who  has  the 
power  of  death,  and  free  them  who  through  fear 
of  death  were  all  their  lifetime  subject  to  bondage 
(ii.  14).  But  all  this,  not  excepting  the  death 
itself  in  this  aspect,  belongs,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  epistle,  rather  to  the  preparation 
for  priesthood  than  to  the  discharge  of  priestly 
functions.  The  priest  must  undoubtedly  be 
kindred  to  the  people   for   whom    he   acts ;    he 


THROUGH  ETERNAL  SPIRIT  2z^ 

must  know  their  nature  and  life ;  he  must 
be  taught  by  experience  like  theirs  to  have 
compassion  on  the  ignorant  and  erring ;  nay, 
he  must  have  sounded  the  tragic  depths  of 
mortal  fear  if  he  is  to  bring  weak,  sinful, 
dying  men  to  God.  All  this  Christ  has  done. 
He  has  qualified  Himself  by  the  immeasurable 
condescension  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  life  in 
the  flesh  to  be  all  that  a  priest  should  be.  But 
when  we  come  to  the  supreme  act  of  His  priest- 
hood, the  offering  of  Himself  to  God  in  death,  the 
entering  into  the  holiest  of  all  through  His  own 
blood,  the  question  recurs  :  What  is  it  which 
gives  this  in  particular  its  efficacy  in  regard  to 
sin? 

The  one  hint  of  an  answer  to  this  question 
offered  by  the  epistle  itself  is  that  which  we 
find  in  the  words  of  ix.  14:  'Christ  who  through 
eternal  spirit  offered  Himself  without  spot  to 
God.'  The  sinlessness  of  Jesus  entered  into  the 
Atonement :  only  one  who  knew  no  sin  could 
take  any  responsibility  in  regard  to  it  which 
would  create  a  new  situation  for  sinners.  But 
more  important  even  than  this  is  the  suggestion 
contained  in  the  words  'through  eternal  spirit.' 
This  is  not  the  same  as  through  'indissoluble 
life'  (vii.  16),  as  though  the  idea  were  that  the 
life  offered  to  God  on  the  Cross  was  one  which 
death  could  not  hold,  but  was  rather  by  death 
'  liberated '  and  '  made  available '  for  others. 
Neither   is   it  the  same  as  'throu^jh  His  divine 


228  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

nature,'  as  though  the  idea  were  that  the  divine 
nature  or  the  divine  personality  through  which 
Christ  surrendered  His  human  life  to  God  gave 
the  sacrifice  an  immeasurable  value.  These  are 
forms  of  words  rather  than  forms  of  thought,  and 
it  is  difficult  to  attach  to  them  any  intelligible 
or  realisable  meaning.  If  we  follow  the  line  of 
thought  suggested  by  the  use  of  ala>vio<:  (eternal) 
in  other  passages  of  the  epistle,  we  shall  rather 
say  that  what  is  meant  here  is  that  Christ's 
offering  of  Himself  without  spot  to  God  had  an 
absolute  or  ideal  character;  it  was  something 
beyond  which  nothing  could  be,  or  could  be 
conceived  to  be,  as  a  response  to  God's  mind 
and  requirements  in  relation  to  sin.  It  was 
the  final  response,  a  spiritual  response,  to  the 
divine  necessities  of  the  situation.  Something 
of  what  is  included  in  this  may  be  suggested 
by  the  contrast  which  is  here  drawn  in  the 
epistle  between  Christ's  offering  of  Himself 
through  eternal  spirit  and  the  sacrifices  of  the 
Old  Testament.  As  opposed  to  these.  His 
sacrifice  was  rational  and  voluntary,  an  intel- 
ligent and  loving  response  to  the  holy  and 
gracious  will  of  God,  and  to  the  terrible  situa- 
tion of  man.  But  what  we  wish  to  understand 
is  why  the  holy  and  gracious  will  of  God,  and 
the  terrible  situation  of  man,  demanded  and 
were  satisfied  by  this  particular  response  of 
Christ's  death,  and  not  by  anything  else. 


SIN  AND  DEATH  AGAIN  229 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  there  is  no  explanation 
of  this  whatever,  unless  we  can  assume  that 
the  author  shared  the  view  of  St.  Paul  and  of 
primitive  Christianity  generally,  that  sin  and 
death  were  so  related  to  one  another — were  in 
some  sense,  indeed,  so  completely  one — that 
no  one  could  undertake  the  responsibility  of 
sin  who  did  not  at  the  same  time  submit  to 
death.  As  has  been  already  said,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose  that  this  relation  of  sin 
and  death  was  established  arbitrarily ;  if  it 
existed  for  the  human  conscience,  as  part  of 
the  actual  order  of  the  world,  the  situation 
would  be  before  us  which  required  Christ  to 
die  in  order  to  take  really  upon  Him  our 
responsibility  in  this  relation.  That  it  does 
thus  exist,  the  New  Testament  elsewhere,  and 
something  in  human  experience  as  well,  com- 
bine to  prove ;  and  that  the  writer  to  the 
Hebrews  was  conscious  of  this  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  he,  like  other  New  Testament 
writers,  makes  the  death  of  Christ  the  very 
thing  by  which  sin  is  annulled  as  a  power 
barring  man's  approach  to  God.  His  idea  is 
not  that  Christ  by  His  death,  or  in  virtue  of 
it,  acts  immediately  upon  the  sinful  soul,  turn- 
ing it  into  a  righteous  one,  and  in  that  sense 
annulling  sin  ;  it  is  rather  that  sin  is  annulled 
and,  in  its  character  as  that  which  shuts  man 
out  from   God's   presence    and   makes  worship 


230  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

impossible,  ceases  to  be,  through  the  once  for 
all  accomplished  sacrifice  of  Christ.  And 
though  his  dominant  thought  may  be  said  to 
be  that  Christ  by  His  death  removes  sin,  as 
an  obstacle  standing  in  our  path — bears  it 
away,  so  that  it  blocks  our  road  to  God  no 
longer — still  He  does  not  do  this  except  by 
dying;  in  other  words.  He  bears  sin  away 
because  He  bears  it ;  He  removes  the  respon- 
sibility of  it  from  us  because  He  takes  it  upon 
Himself. 

The  connection  of  ideas  which  is  here  sug- 
gested is  often  controverted  by  appeal  to  the 
passage  at  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  chapter. 
There  the  writer  is  contrasting  the  sacrifices  of 
the  old  covenant  with  that  of  the  new.  '  The 
law,'  he  says,  'having  a  shadow  of  the  good 
things  to  come,  not  the  very  image  of  the  things, 
could  never  with  the  same  sacrifices  which  they 
offer  year  by  year  continually  make  perfect  those 
who  draw  near.  Otherwise  would  they  not  have 
ceased  to  be  offered,  owing  to  the  worshippers, 
having  been  once  purged,  having  no  longer 
conscience  of  sins  ?  So  far  from  this  being  the 
case,  sins  are  brought  to  mind  in  them  year  by 
year.  It  is  impossible  for  blood  of  bulls  and 
goats  to  remove  them.  Accordingly,  at  His 
entrance  into  the  world,  He  says,  "  Sacrifice  and 
offering  Thou  didst  not  desire,  but  a  body  didst 
Thou  prepare  for  me.     In  whole  burnt  offerings 


REDEMPTIVE  OBEDIENCE  131 

and  offerings  for  sin  Thou  hadst  no  pleasure." 
Then  I  said,  "  Behold  I  come ;  in  the  volume  of 
the  Book  it  is  written  concerning  Me;  to  do 
Thy- will,  O  God."  Above,  in  saying  "sacrifices 
and  offerings,  and  whole  burnt  offerings,  and 
offerings  for  sin  Thou  didst  not  desire  nor  take 
pleasure  in " — that  is,  God  had  no  delight  in 
such  sacrifices  as  are  offered  according  to  the 
law — then  His  Word  stands,  *'  Lo,  I  come  to  do 
Thy  will."  He  removes  the  first  to  establish 
the  second.'  This  passage  is  often  read  as  if  it 
signified  that  sacrifice  was  abolished  in  favour 
of  obedience,  and  the  inference  is  drawn  that 
no  use  can  be  made  of  the  conception  of  sacrifice 
in  the  interpretation  of  Christ's  death,  or  as  it 
is  sometimes  put,  that  no  significance  can  be 
assigned  to  His  death  which  does  not  belong 
equally  to  every  part  of  His  life.  His  obedience 
is  what  atones,  and  His  obedience  is  the  same 
from  first  to  last.  But  to  argue  thus  is  to  ignore 
the  very  words  with  which  the  writer  proceeds : 
*in  which  will — that  is,  the  will  of  God  which 
Christ  came  to  do — we  have  been  sanctified,  i.e. 
constituted  a  worshipping  people  of  God,  through 
the  offering  of  the  body  0/  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all.' 
We  cannot  here,  any  more  than  in  other  passages 
of  the  New  Testament,  make  the  original  sense 
of  Old  Testament  words  a  key  to  their  meaning 
when  they  are  quoted  in  the  New.  What  is 
contrasted  in  this  passage  is  not  sacrifice  and 


232  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

obedience,  but  sacrifice  of  dumb  creatures,  of 
bulls  and  goats  and  such  like,  with  sacrifice  into 
^Vhich  obedience  enters,  the  sacrifice  of  a  rational 
and  spiritual  being,  which  is  not  passive  in  death, 
but  in  dying  makes  the  will  of  God  its  own. 
The  will  of  God,  with  which  we  are  here  con- 
cerned, is  not  satisfied  by  an  obedience  which 
comes  short  of  death.  For  it  is  not  merely  the 
preceptive  will  of  God,  His  will  that  men  should 
do  right  and  live  according  to  His  holy  law, 
which  Christ  came  to  fulfil;  it  is  His  gracious 
will,  a  will  which  has  it  in  view  that  sinful  men 
should  be  constituted  into  a  people  to  Himself, 
a  will  which  has  resolved  that  their  sin  should 
be  so  dealt  with  as  no  longer  to  keep  them  at  a 
distance  from  Him  ;  a  will,  in  short,  that  sinners 
should  find  a  standing  in  His  sight.  And  in 
that  will  we  are  sanctified,  not  merely  by  Christ's 
fulfilment  of  the  law  of  God  as  it  is  binding  on 
man  in  general,  but  by  His  fulfilment  of  the  law 
as  it  is  binding  on  sinful  men,  by  His  obedient 
suffering  of  death  as  that  in  which  God's  mind 
in  relation  to  sin  finds  its  final  expression :  to 
use  the  words  of  the  writer  himself, '  through  the 
offering  of  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all.' 
There  is  an  ambiguity  in  saying  that  obedience 
is  the  principle  of  the  atonement,  or  its  spiritual 
principle,  or  that  which  gives  the  work  of  Christ 
its  value.*     It  is  no  doubt  true  to  say  so,  but 

*  C£  Non  mors  std  voluntas plcuuit  spottte  morientis  (Bernard). 


REDEMPTIVE  OBEDIENCE  433 

after  we  have  said  so  the  essential  question 
remains — that  question  the  answer  to  which  must 
show  whether,  when  we  say  *  obedience/  we  have 
seen  any  way  into  the  secret  of  the  Atonement : 
viz.  obedience  to  what?  It  is  not  enough  to 
say,  Obedience  to  the  will  of  God ;  for  the  will 
of  God  is  one  thing  when  we  think  of  man 
abstractly,  another  when  we  think  of  man  under 
the  definite  conditions  produced  by  sin.  It  is 
one  thing  when  we  conceive  of  it  as  an  impera- 
tive will,  having  relation  only  to  man  as  God's 
creature ;  it  is  another  when  we  conceive  it  as 
a  redeeming,  restorative,  gracious  will,  of  which 
the  human  race  is  in  reality  the  object,  not  the 
subject,  the  subject  by  whom  the  will  is  carried 
out  being  Christ.  In  both  cases,  of  course, 
obedience,  the  free  fulfilment  of  the  divine  will, 
is  that  which  has  moral  value.  But  just  because, 
in  both  cases,  the  attitude  of  the  human  will  is 
formally  the  same — just  because  we  can  say 
'obedience,'  whether  we  are  thinking  of  God's 
will  generally,  or  thinking  of  it  as  a  will  specially 
directed  to  the  redemption  of  the  sinful — just 
for  this  reason  it  is  inadequate,  ambiguous,  and 
misleading  to  speak  of  obedience  as  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Atonement.  Christ's  obedience  is 
not  merely  that  which  is  required  of  all  men,  it 
is  that  which  is  required  of  a  Redeemer ;  and  it 
is  its  peculiar  content,  not  the  mere  fact  that 
it  is  obedience,  which  constitutes  it  an  atonement 


234  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

He  had  a  moral  vocation,  of  course ;  but  it  was 
not  this — and  this  is  all  that  obedience  means — 
which  made  Him  a  Redeemer :  it  was  something 
unique  in  His  vocation,  something  that  pertained 
to  Him  alone.  Christ  did  not  come  into  the 
world  to  be  a  good  man :  it  was  not  for  this  that 
a  body  was  prepared  for  Him.  He  came  to  be 
a  great  High  Priest,  and  the  body  was  prepared 
for  Him  that  by  the  offering  of  it  He  might  put 
sinful  men  for  ever  into  the  perfect  religious 
relation  to  God. 

In  determining  the  meaning  of  obedience,  and 
of  the  will  of  God,  in  this  passage,  we  touch  the 
quick  of  the  great  question  about  the  relations  of 
Incarnation  and  Atonement.  If  we  have  read  it 
correctly,  it  confirms  what  has  been  already  said 
about  the  ideal  priority  of  the  latter.  It  is  the 
Atonement  which  explains  the  Incarnation :  the 
Incarnation  takes  place  in  order  that  the  sin  of 
the  world  may  be  put  away  by  the  offering  of 
the  body  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  obedience  of  the 
Incarnate  One,  like  all  obedience,  has  moral 
value — that  is,  it  has  a  value  for  Himself;  but 
its  redemptive  value,  i.e.  its  value  for  us,  belongs 
to  it  not  simply  as  obedience,  but  as  obedience 
to  a  will  of  God  which  requires  the  Redeemer 
to  take  upon  Himself  in  death  the  responsibility 
of  the  sin  of  the  world.  That  this  is  done 
obediently  implies  that  in  dying  the  Son  of  God 
acknowledges  the  justice  of  God  in  connecting 


CHRIST  AND  HIS  PEOPLE  235 

death  and  sin,  as  they  are  connected  for  the 
human  conscience ;  He  does  right,  as  it  has  been 
put,  by  the  divine  law  which  is  expressed  in  that 
connection.  And  in  doing  so  He  does  perfectly, 
and  therefore  finally  and  once  for  all,  something 
through  which  sinful  men  can  enter  into  fellow- 
ship with  God.  He  lays  the  basis  of  the  new 
covenant ;  He  does  what  sinners  can  look  to  as 
a  finished  work ;  He  makes  an  objective  atone- 
ment for  sin — exactly  what  St.  Paul  describes 
as  KaTaWaryq  or  reconciliation.  There  is  peace 
now  between  God  and  man ;  we  can  draw  near 
to  the  Holy  One. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  does  not  make  as 
clear  to  us  as  the  Pauline  epistles  how  it  is  that 
Christ's  death  becomes  effective  for  men.  The 
author  was  not  an  evangelist  so  much  as  a 
pastor,  and  it  is  not  the  initiation  of  Christianity 
but  its  conservation  with  which  he  deals  through- 
out. But  the  answer  to  the  question  is  involved 
in  the  conception  of  Christ  as  Priest.  The  priest 
is  a  person  who  acts  as  the  representative  of  a 
people:  he  does  something  which  it  properly 
falls  to  them  to  do,  but  which  they  cannot  do 
for  themselves  ;  by  God's  grace  he  does  it,  and 
on  the  strength  of  it  they  draw  near  to  God. 
The  epistle  lays  great  stress  on  the  fact  that 
Christ  has  identified  Himself  with  man  ;  in  sub- 
stance, therefore,  it  may  be  said,  His  work  must 
be  appropriated  by  men's  identifying  themselves 


236  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

with  Him,  The  writer  never  uses  the  Pauline 
expression  'in  Christ'  to  express  this  identifica- 
tion or  its  result ;  he  has  the  vaguer  conception  of 
being  '  partakers  of  Christ,'  /jbiroxoi  tov  "Kpiarov, 
which  so  far  answers  to  it  (iii.  14,  cf.  iii.  i,  vi.  4, 
xii.  8).  Christ  is  not  represented,  as  He  is  by 
St.  Paul,  as  the  object  of  faith  ;  He  is  rather  the 
great  exemplar  of  faith.  Yet  He  is  the  object  of 
the  Christian  confession,  both  as  apostle  and 
High  Priest  (iii.  i) ;  it  is  to  those  who  obey  Him 
that  He  is  the  author  of  eternal  salvation  (v.  9)  ; 
and  He  is  the  centre  to  which  the  eyes  and 
hearts  of  Christians  are  steadily  directed.  It 
does  not,  therefore,  exhaust  the  meaning  of  the 
writer  to  say  that  He  is  our  representative,  and 
that  He  does  nothing  for  us  which  it  is  not  for 
us  to  do  over  again.  It  is  true  that  He  is  our 
representative ;  but  He  not  only  acts  in  our 
name,  and  in  our  interest ;  in  His  action  He 
does  something  for  us  which  we  could  never  have 
done  for  ourselves,  and  which  does  not  need  to 
be  done  over  again  ;  He  achieves  something 
which  we  can  look  to  as  a  finished  work,  and  in 
which  we  can  find  the  basis  of  a  sure  confidence 
toward  God.  He  achieves,  in  short,  '  purgation 
of  sins'  (i.  3).  This  is  the  evangelical  truth 
which  is  covered  by  the  word  '  substitute,'  and 
which  is  not  covered  by  the  word  '  representative'; 
and  it  is  the  consciousness  of  this  truth  that 
makes  the  Evangelical  Church  sensitive  and  even 


IDENTIFICATION  WITH  CHRIST       237 

jealous  of  a  too  free  and  easy  use  of  the  ideas 
that  Christ  becomes  one  with  us  in  all  things, 
and  we  in  all  things  one  with  Him.  There  is  an 
immense  qualification  to  be  made  in  this  oneness 
on  both  sides — Christ  does  not  commit  sin,  and 
we  do  not  make  atonement.  The  working  in  us 
of  the  mind  of  Christ  toward  sin,  which  presum- 
ably is  what  is  meant  by  our  identification  with 
Hiip  in  His  death,  is  not  the  making  of  atone- 
ment, nor  the  basis  of  our  reconciliation  to  God  ; 
it  is  the  fruit  of  the  Atonement,  which  is  Christ's 
finished  work.  Seeberg's  elaborate  essay  on  the 
death  of  Christ  in  Hebrews  is  an  admirable  illus- 
tration of  the  confusion  which  results  from  the 
hazy  use  of  words  like  'identification,*  Zusammen- 
schluss,  etc.,  or  the  idea  (to  call  it  an  idea)  that 
Christ  and  the  Christian  are  one  person,  and  that 
this  is  what  makes  access  to  God  and  forgive- 
ness of  sins  possible.  It  leads  to  expressions 
like  this :  '  Forgiveness  of  sins  therefore  presup- 
poses that  the  life  of  him  who  has  experience  of 
it  comes  to  have  the  standing  of  a  life  which  has 
passed  sinless  through  death.''  The  forgiveness 
of  sins  may  come  to  this  in  the  end ;  it  may 
beget  a  life  which  shares  in  Christ's  victory  over 
sin  and  death ;  but  it  is  surely  a  subversion  of 
the  very  idea  of  forgiveness  to  say  that  it  pre- 
supposes it.  A  life  that  has  passed  sinless 
through  death,  whatever  else  it  may  know,  knows 

>  D*r  Tod  CAritfi,  p.  gzU 


a:<8  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

nothing  of  forgiveness ;  and  therefore  forgive- 
ness, whatever  it  may  be,  is  not  a  participation 
in  any  part  of  such  a  life's  experience,  whether 
by  the  method  of  '  identification '  or  by  any 
other.  Or  again,  from  another  side,  the  hazy 
use  of  such  language  leads  to  utterances  like 
this:  'The  thing  Christ  has  done  {die  Leistung 
Christt),  though  it  has  not  been  done  by  the 
sinner,  is  yet  a  thing  which  he  might  or  would 
fain  have  done,  and  is  therefore  in  principle  his 
doing.' ^  This  is  not  wrestling  with  mysteries,  or 
sounding  great  deeps ;  it  is  trifling  with  words, 
or  trying  to  say  Yes  and  No  in  the  same  breath. 
Let  the  Passion  of  Christ  draw  us  to  the  utmost 
to  share  in  His  mind  toward  God  and  toward  sin, 
and  the  fact  remains  that  its  power  to  do  so  is 
dependent  on  the  clear  recognition  of  the  truth 
that  Christ  did  something  for  us  in  His  death 
which  we  could  not  do  for  ourselves,  and  which 
we  do  not  need  to  do  after  Him.  By  His  one 
offering  He  put  us  for  ever  in  the  perfect  relation 
to  God.  This  is  the  vital  point  in  Christianity, 
and  to  deny  the  debt  to  Christ  at  this  point  is 
eventually  to  deny  it  altogether.  The  process 
which  starts  with  rejecting  the  objective  Atone- 
ment— in  other  word.s,  the  finished  work  of 
Christ  and  the  eternal  dependence  on  Him  and 
obligation  to  Him  which  this  involves — has  its 
inevitable  and  natural  issue  in  the  denial  that 

>  D«r  Tod  Christt,  p.  99. 


FAITH  IN  HEBREWS  939 

Christ  has  any  essential  place  in  the  Gospel 
We  can  only  assent  to  such  a  view  by  renouncing 
the  New  Testament  as  a  whole. 

Although  faith  is  not  defined  in  the  epistle 
directly  by  relation  to  Christ,  it  is  nevertheless 
faith  which  saves  (x.  22,  38  f.,  xiii.  7),  and  the  well- 
known  description  or  definition  in  the  eleventh 
chapter  can  easily  be  applied  in  the  Christian 
religion.  Faith  is  there  said  to  be  the  assurance 
of  things  hoped  for,  the  proof  of  things  not  seen 
(xi.  i).  It  is  to  the  invisible  world  what  sight 
is  to  the  visible ;  it  is  the  means  of  realising  it, 
so  that  its  powers  and  motives  enter  into  the  life 
of  men,  and  enable  them  after  patient  endurance 
and  fulfilment  of  God's  will  to  inherit  the  pro- 
mises. What,  then,  is  the  unseen  world  which  is 
realised  by  Christian  faith  ?  It  is  a  world  in 
which  Christ  holds  the  central  place,  and  in 
which,  in  the  virtue  of  that  death  in  which  He 
made  purgation  of  sins.  He  appears  perpetually 
in  the  presence  of  God  on  our  behalf.  It  is  a 
world  in  which  everything  is  dominated  by  the 
figure  of  the  great  High  Priest,  at  the  right  hand 
of  the  Majesty  in  the  Heavens,  clothed  in  our 
nature,  compassionate  to  our  infirmities,  able  to 
save  to  the  uttermost,  sending  timely  succour  to 
those  who  are  in  peril,  pleading  our  cause.  It  is 
this  which  faith  sees,  this  to  which  it  clings  as 
the  divine  reality  behind  and  beyond  all  that 
passes,  all  that  tries,  daunts,  or  discourages  the 


340  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

soul ;  it  is  this  in  which  it  finds  the  ens  realis- 
simum,  the  very  truth  of  things,  all  that  is  meant 
by  God.  It  is  holding  fast  to  the  eternal 
realities  revealed  in  Christ,  and  not  some  in- 
definable '  identification  *  with  Him,  on  which  all 
that  is  Christian  depends.  And  it  is  this,  more 
than  anything,  which,  in  spite  of  differences  of 
form,  makes  the  writer  akin  to  St.  Paul.  For  he 
too  builds  everything  on  Jesus  Christ,  crucified 
and  exalted. 


THE  JOHANNINE  WRITINGS  a4i 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  JOHANNINE  WRITINGS 

By  the  Johannine  writings  are  meant  the  Apoca- 
lypse and  the  fourth  gospel,  as  well  as  the  three 
catholic  epistles  to  which  the  name  of  John  is 
traditionally  attached.  It  is  not  possible  to 
enter  here  into  a  review  of  the  critical  questions 
connected  with  them,  and  especially  into  the 
question  of  their  authorship.  The  most  recent 
criticism,  while  it  seems  to  bring  the  traditional 
authorship  into  greater  uncertainty,  approaches 
more  nearly  than  was  once  common  to  the  posi- 
tion of  tradition  in  another  respect :  it  ascribes 
all  these  writings  to  the  same  locality,  to  pretty 
much  the  same  period,  and  to  the  same  circle  of 
ideas  and  sympathies.  This  is  a  nearer  approach 
than  would  once  have  been  thought  probable  to 
ascribing  them  all  to  the  same  hand.  When  a 
writer  like  Weizsacker  concludes  that  the  Apo- 
calypse and  the  fourth  gospel  have  so  many 
points  of  contact  that  they  must  have  come  from 
one  school,  while  they  are  nevertheless  so  dis- 
tinct that  they  must  have  come  from  different 

Q 


242  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

hands,*  it  is  probably  quite  legitimate  to  treat 
the  two  in  connection,  if  not  to  regard  them  as 
one.  Thirty  years  ago  it  would  have  been  un- 
critical to  speak  of  them  except  as  the  extremest 
opposites  to  each  other.  As  for  the  connection 
between  the  gospel  and  the  epistles,  or  at  least 
the  first  epistle,  with  which  alone  we  shall  be 
concerned,  that  seems  to  me  indubitable.  No 
doubt  there  are  differences  between  them,  and  a 
difference  touching  closely  on  our  subject — the 
epistle,  like  all  epistles  in  contrast  with  all 
gospels,  having  more  of  what  may  be  called 
reflection  upon  Christ's  death,  or  interpretation 
of  it,  than  the  kindred  gospel.  But  that  does 
not  prove,  as  J.  R^ville  argues,^  that  they  were 
due  to  different  hands  ;  it  only  proves  that  the 
gospel,  however  much  it  may  be  subdued  in 
form  to  the  style  of  the  writer's  own  thoughts,  is 
true  to  its  character  as  a  gospel,  and  the  epistle 
to  its  character  as  an  epistle.  If  these  two  books 
cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  same  pen,  literary 
criticism  is  bankrupt.  The  whole  of  the  Johan- 
nine  writings,  it  may  be  safely  assumed,  belongs 
to  the  region  of  Asia  Minor,  to  a  school,  let  us 
say,  which  had  'its  headquarters  in  Ephesus,  and 
to  the  last  quarter,  or  perhaps  the  last  decade,  of 
the  first  century  of  our  era. 

The  opening  words  of  the  Apocalypse  carry 

*  Doi  apostolische  Zeitaiter,  p.  484. 

•  L4  quatriime  /^vangi/e,  p.  5 1  ff. 


THE  APOCALYPSE  94$ 

us  at  once  to  the  heart  of  our  subject.  John 
interweaves  with  the  address  of  his  book  to  the 
seven  churches  a  sudden  doxology :  '  To  Him 
that  loveth  us,  and  loosed  us  from  our  sins  in  His 
blood,  and  He  made  us  a  kingdom,  priests  to  His 
God  and  Father,  to  Him  be  the  glory  and  the 
dominion  for  ever  and  ever '  (i.  5  f ).  What  is 
before  his  mind  as  he  speaks  is  Christ  in  His 
exaltation — the  faithful  witness,  the  firstborn 
of  the  dead,  the  prince  of  the  kings  of  the  earth ; 
but  he  cannot  contemplate  Him,  nor  think  of 
the  grace  and  peace  which  he  invokes  on  the 
churches  from  Him,  without  recurring  to  the 
great  deed  of  Christ  on  which  they  ultimately 
depend.  Christ's  love  is  permanent  and  un- 
changing, and  John  thinks  of  it  as  such  (toS 
ayairavTi  rjfia^,  to  Him  that  loveth  us) ;  but  the 
great  demonstration  of  it  belongs  to  the  past 
(^KoX  \vaavTi  '^fj,d<i  ex  rSiv  afiapri&v  r^fiSiv  iv  rw 
aifiart  avTov).  He  does  not  say,  '  who  liberates 
us  from  our  sins,'  as  though  a  progressive  purifi- 
cation were  in  view;  but  'who  liberated  us,' 
pointing  to  a  finished  work.  It  seems  to  me 
far  the  most  probable  interpretation  of  iv  to3 
aifjuiTi  to  make  iv  represent  the  Hebrew  3  of 
price :  Christ's  blood  was  the  cost  of  our  libera- 
tion, the  ransom  price  which  He  paid.  This 
agrees  with  the  word, of  our  Lord  Himself  in  the 
Gospel  about  giving  His  life  a  ransom  for  many 
(Matt.  XX.  28),  and  with  other  passages  in  the 


244  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Apocalypse  in  which  the  notion  of  '  buying '  a 
people  for  God  finds  expression  (v.  9,  xiv.  3  f.). 
Sin,  or  rather  sins,  held  men  in  bondage  ;  and 
from  this  degrading  servitude  Christ  purchased 
their  freedom  at  no  less  a  cost  than  that  of  His 
own  life.  It  is  not  any  undefined  goodwill,  it  is 
the  love  revealed  in  this  dear-bought  emancipa- 
tion of  the  sinful,  which  inspires  the  doxology, 
'to  Him  that  loveth  us.'  Redemption,  it  may  be 
said,  springs  from  love,  yet  love  is  only  a  word 
of  which  we  do  not  know  the  meaning  till  it  is 
interpreted  for  us  by  redemption.^ 

The  result  of  the  liberty,  bought  by  Christ's 
blood,  is  that  those  who  were  once  held  by  sin 
are  made  a  kingdom,  even  priests,  to  His  God 
and  Father.  These  words  are  borrowed  from  the 
fundamental  promise  of  the  Old  Covenant  in 
Exodus  xix.  6.  '  He  made  us  a  kingdom '  does 
not  mean  '  He  made  us  kings'  (so  some  MSS.  and 
A.V.).  It  means,  '  He  constituted  us  a  people 
over  whom  God  reigns':  the  dignity  conferred 
on  us  is  not  that  of  sovereignty,  but  of  citizen- 

'  KoiiffavTi  {washed)  is  the  reading  familiar  to  ua  from  the 
Received  Text  and  the  Vulgate.  It  also,  as  well  as  \6aavTi,  has 
analogies  in  the  book  :  cf.  vii.  14  and  the  Text.  Rec  at  xxii.  14 ; 
and  Uuusset  calls  attention  to  the  frequent  mention  of  white  robes 
without  any  particidar  reference  to  the  blood  of  Christ.  The 
sacrament  of  baptism  made  the  figure  of  washing  an  obvious  one 
to  Christians,  quite  apart  from  such  suggestions  as  are  given  ty 
P>.  1.  4,  Isa.  i.  16,  18,  and  its  influence  is  apparent  in  i  Cor. 
Ti.  II,  Tit.  ii.  14.  On  the  whole,  \6aavTi  is  much  the  better- 
supported  reading :  for  the  meaning  which  would  go  witk 
Xviacwn  iv  see  below  on  vii.  14,  p.  247. 


THE  LAMB  SLAIN  245 

ship.  '  He  made  us  priests '  means  that  in  virtue 
of  His  action  we  are  constituted  a  worshipping 
people  of  God  ;  on  the  ground  of  it  we  have 
access  to  the  Father.  Both  words  together  imply 
that  it  is  the  action  of  Christ,  who  died  for  our 
redemption,  to  which  we  owe  our  standing  in 
God's  sight,  and  our  whole  relation  to  Him  so  far 
as  it  is  anything  in  which  we  can  rejoice.  All 
dignity  and  all  privilege  rest  on  the  fact  that  He 
set  us  free  from  our  sins  at  the  cost  of  His  blood. 
A  doxology  is  not  the  place  at  which  to  seek  for 
the  rationale  of  anything,  and  we  do  not  find  the 
rationale  of  these  things  here.  It  is  the  fact  only 
which  is  brought  into  view.  The  vision  of  Christ 
calls  out  the  whole  contents  of  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness ;  the  Christian  heart  is  sensible  of  all 
it  owes  to  Him,  and  sensible  that  it  owes  it  all  in 
some  way  to  His  death. 

Next  in  significance  to  this  striking  passage 
come  the  frequent  references  in  the  Apocalypse 
to  the  Lamb,  and  especially  to  the  Lamb  as  it 
had  been  slain.  In  all,  this  name  occurs  twenty- 
nine  times.  The  most  important  passages  are 
the  following:  (i)  ch.  v.  6-14.  Here  the  Lamb 
is  represented  as  sovereign — the  object  of  all 
praise ;  as  a  Lamb  which  had  been  sacrificed — 
i(r<payfiivov  means  '  with  the  throat  cut';  as  living 
and  victorious — k<TrT]K6<i  (standing).  It  has  the 
character  which  sacrifice  confers,  but  it  is  alive ; 
it  is  not  dead,  but  it  has  the  virtue  of  its  death  ia 


246  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

it.  It  is  on  the  ground  of  this  death,  and  of  the 
redemption  (or  purchase  of  men  for  God)  effected 
by  it,  that  all  praise  is  ascribed  to  the  Lamb,  and 
the  knowledge  and  control  of  all  providence  put 
into  His  hands.  '  Worthy  art  Thou  to  take  the 
book  and  to  open  the  seals  of  it,  for  Thou  wast 
slain  and  didst  purchase  to  God  by  Thy  blood '  (iv 
To3  atfiarC  crov)  '  out  of  every  tribe  and  tongue  and 
people  and  nation,  and  didst  make  them  to  our 
God  a  kingdom  and  priests,  and  they  shall  reign 
upon  the  earth.'  Here  we  have  the  ideas  of 
i.  5  repeated,  with  the  further  thought  that  love 
like  that  displayed  in  Christ's  death  for  man's 
redemption  is  worthy  not  only  of  all  praise,  but 
of  having  all  the  future  committed  to  its  care. 
It  is  really  a  pictorial  way  of  saying  that  redeem- 
ing love  is  the  last  reality  in  the  universe,  which 
all  praise  must  exalt,  and  to  which  everything 
else  must  be  subordinate.  (2)  The  next  passage 
is  that  in  vii.  14,  about  the  martyrs  in  the  Neronic 
(or  Domitianic  ?)  persecution.  '  One  of  the  elders 
answered  me,  saying,  These  that  are  clothed  in 
the  white  robes,  who  are  they,  and  whence  did 
they  come?  and  I  said  to  Him,  My  Lord,  Thou 
knowest.  And  He  said  to  me,  These  arc  they 
that  come  out  of  the  great  tribulation,  and  they 
washed  their  robes  and  made  them  white  ip  r^ 
aifiaTi  Tov  apviov  (in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb)/ 
Here  what  is  referred  to  is  evidently  the  power 
of  Christ's  death  to  sanctify  men,  though  how  it 


THE  BLOOD  OF  THE  LAMB  247 

is  exercised  we  are  not  told.  The  people  seen  in 
this  vision,  the  endless  procession  coming  out  of 
the  great  tribulation,  were  martyrs  and  confessors. 
They  had  taken  up  their  cross  and  followed  Jesus 
to  the  end.  They  had  drunk  of  His  cup,  and 
been  baptized  with  His  baptism.  They  had 
resisted  unto  blood,  striving  against  sins,  and 
now  they  were  pure  even  as  He  was  pure.  But 
the  inspiration  to  all  this,  and  the  strength  for  it, 
was  not  their  own  :  they  owed  it  to  Him.  They 
washed  their  robes  and  made  them  white  in  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb;  it  was  the  power  of  His 
Passion,  descending  into  their  hearts,  which 
enabled  them  to  do  what  they  did.  Once  more, 
the  rationale  is  wanting.  Some  may  feel  that 
none  is  needed — that  the  Cross  acts  immediately 
in  this  way  on  those  who  are  of  the  truth :  none, 
at  all  events,  is  given.  We  can  only  feel  that  the 
Cross  must  have  some  divine  meaning  in  it  when 
it  exercises  so  overwhelming  a  constraint.  (3) 
The  third  passage  has  also  a  relation  to  martyr- 
dom, or  at  least  to  fidelity  in  a  time  of  terrible 
persecution.  'And  they  overcame  him  because 
of  the  blood  of  the  Lamb,  and  because  of  the  word 
of  their  testimony,  and  they  loved  not  their  life 
unto  death '  (xii.  11).  It  is  implied  in  this  that 
but  for  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  they  would  not 
have  been  able  to  overcome  ;  the  pressure  put  on 
them  would  have  been  too  great,  and  they  would 
inevitably  have  succumbed  to  it.      But  with  a 


248  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

motive  behind  them  like  the  blood  of  the  Lamb 
they  were  invincible.  Now  nothing  can  be  a 
motive  unless  it  has  a  meaning  ;  nothing  can  be  a 
motive  in  the  line  and  in  the  sense  implied  here 
unless  it  has  a  gracious  meaning.  To  say  that 
they  overcame,  because  of  the  blood  of  the  Lamb, 
is  the  same  as  to  say  that  the  love  of  Christ  con- 
strained them.  They  dared  not,  with  the  Cross  on 
which  He  died  for  them  before  their  eyes,  betray 
His  cause  by  cowardice,  and  love  their  own 
lives  more  than  He  had  loved  His.  They  must 
be  His,  as  He  had  been  theirs.  It  is  taken  for 
granted  here  that  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  there 
had  been  a  great  demonstration  of  love  to  them  ; 
in  other  words,  that  the  death  of  Christ  was 
capable  of  being  defined  in  such  a  way,  in  relation 
to  their  necessities,  as  to  bear  this  interpretation. 
It  is  because  it  is  an  incomparable  demonstration 
of  love  that  it  is  an  irresistible  motive.  And 
though  the  relation  is  not  thought  out  nor  defined 
here — where  it  would  have  been  utterly  out  of 
place — it  is  not  forcing  the  language  in  the  least 
to  assume  that  it  must  have  existed  in  fact  for 
the  author. 

There  are  two  other  passages  which  might  be 
brought  into  connection  with  our  subject — xiii.  8, 
and  xxi.  27 — in  which  reference  is  made  to  '  the 
Lamb's  book  of  life.'  In  this  book  the  names  are 
written  of  those  who  are  to  inherit  life  everlast- 
ing :  those  whose  names  are  not  found  there  die 


THE  LAMB'S  BOOK  OF  LIFE  249 

the  second  death.  Nothing  could  express  more 
strongly  the  writer's  conviction  that  there  is  no 
salvation  in  any  other  than  the  Lamb  :  that  in 
Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified  is  the  whole  hope 
of  a  sinful  world.  It  is  very  common  to  take  the 
first  of  the  two  passages  just  quoted  as  though  it 
spoke  of  'the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of 
the  world,'  and  to  argue  from  it  that  atonement 
is  no  afterthought,  that  redemption  belongs  to 
the  very  being  of  God  and  the  nature  of  things ; 
but  though  these  are  expressions  upon  which 
a  Christian  meaning  can  be  put,  they  find  no 
support  in  this  passage.  The  words  *  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world '  are  not  to  be  construed 
with  'slain,'  but  with  'written,'  as  the  parallel 
passage  proves ;  it  is  the  names  of  the  redeemed 
that  stand  from  eternity  in  the  Lamb's  book  of 
life,  not  the  death  or  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  which 
is  carried  back  from  Calvary  and  invested  with 
an  eternal,  as  distinct  from  its  historical,  reality. 
An  apostle  would  probably  have  felt  that  the 
historical  reality  was  compromised  by  such  a 
conception,  or  that  something  was  taken  away 
from  its  absolute  significance.  But  even  dis- 
counting this,  it  has  no  exegetic  support.^ 

*  The  use  of  this  text  which  is  here  rejected  is  found  e.g.  in 
Contentio  Veritatis,  p.  298,  where  Mr.  Inge  writes  :  '  These  [the 
death  and  resurrection  of  Curist]  are  eternal  acts,  even  as  the 
generation  of  the  Son  of  God  is  an  eternal  act.  They  belong  to 
the  unchangeable  and  ever-operating  counsels  of  God.  So  it  is 
possible  for  the  New  Testament  writers  to  say  that  the  Lamb  was 
slain  for  us  from  the  foundaiion  of  the  world,  and  that  the  rock 


250  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

If  we  try  to  put  together  the  various  lights 
which  the  Apocalypse  casts  on  the  death  of  Jesus, 
we  may  say:  (i)  That  death  is  regarded  as  a 
great  demonstration  of  love  (i.  5).  (2)  It  is  a 
death  which  once  for  all  has  achieved  something 
— the  aorists  \vaavTL  (i.  5))  ia'(f>d<yr)<i  koI  7770/30- 
o-a9  iv  T<S  aifiuTi  (v.  9),  prove  this.  There  is  a 
finished  work  in  it.  (3)  It  is  a  death  which 
has  an  abiding  power  —  dpviov  oi<;  ia-(f)ayfi€vov 
(v.  6),  not  a(f)ayiv}  (4)  This  abiding  power  is 
exercised  in  this,  that  it  enables  men  to  be  faith- 
ful to  Christ  under  persecution,  to  suffer  with 
Him  rather  than  sin,  finally,  rather  to  die  than 
sin  (xii.  11).  Christ  Himself  was  a  martyr,  and 
the  typical  Christian  is  a  martyr  too.  To  be 
a  martyr  is  to  furnish  the  decisive  proof  that  the 
abiding  power  of  Christ's  blood  is  being  exercised 
over  one's  life.  (5)  Hence  the  blood  of  Christ 
both  does  something  once  for  all — in  breaking 

which  followed  the  Israelites  through  the  wilderness  was  Christ. 
The  passion  of  Christ  was  itself  (as  the  Greek  Fathers  called  it)  a 
sacrament  or  mystery  of  an  eternal  truth ;  it  was  the  supreme 
sacrament  of  human  history ;  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  a 
great  supra-tempural  fact.*  This  point  of  view,  whatever  its 
legitimacy  or  illegitimacy,  is  certainly  much  more  characteristic 
of  the  Greek  Fathers  than  of  the  New  Testament  writers.  To  the 
Utter  Christ  is  the  equivalent  of  absolute  spiritual  reality.  They 
never  raise  the  abstract  question  of  the  relation  of  time  to  eternity  ; 
and  though  the  eternal  import  of  the  historical,  in  the  life  and 
death  of  Jesus,  is  the  foundation  of  all  their  thinking,  they  never 
describe  the  Passion  as  the  sacrament  or  symbol  of  any  reality 
beyond  Itself. 

>  Compare  St.  Paul's  use  of  the  perfect  participle  ifravpu/iii'Wt 
I  Cor.  i.  23,  2  Cor.  ii.  2,  Gal.  Hi.  i. 


THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL  asi 

the  bond  which  sin  holds  us  by,  and  bringing  us 
into  such  a  relation  to  God  that  we  are  a  people 
of  priests — and  does  something  progressively,  in 
assuring  our  gradual  assimilation  to  Jesus  Christ 
the  faithful  witness.  In  both  respects  the  Chris- 
tian life  is  absolutely  indebted  to  it ;  without  it, 
it  could  neither  begin  nor  go  on.  There  is  the 
same  experience,  it  may  be  said,  of  Christ's  death, 
the  same  practical  appreciation  of  it,  and  the 
same  exultant  and  devout  utterances  of  that 
appreciation  in  the  language  of  worship,  which 
we  find  in  St.  Paul ;  but,  as  we  might  expect, 
when  the  nature  of  the  composition  is  taken  into 
account,  we  do  not  find  any  such  dialectic  treat- 
ment of  this  Christian  experience,  and  of  the 
ideas  it  involves,  as  in  the  writings  of  the  apostle 
of  the  Gentiles. 

We  may  now  proceed  to  the  examination  of 
the  gospel.  The  general  conception  of  the  fourth 
gospel  is  that  what  we  owe  to  Christ  is  life, 
eternal  life  ;  and  this  life,  it  may  further  be  said, 
we  owe  to  the  Person  rather  than  to  anything 
He  does.  This  is  true  without  any  qualification 
of  the  prologue  (ch.  i.  1-18),  and  it  is  true  of  the 
gospel  so  far  as  the  influence  of  the  prologue  can 
be  traced  through  it.  If  we  use  the  word  re- 
demption at  all — and  it  occurs  naturally  to  us  as 
we  come  from  the  Apocalypse — we  must  say  that 
redemption  is  conceived  in  the  gospel  as  taking 
place  through  revelation.    Jesus  redeems  men,  or 


25*  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

gives  them  life,  by  revealing  to  them  the  truth 
about  God.  The  revelation  is  made  in  His  own 
Person — by  His  words  and  deeds,  no  doubt,  but 
supremely  by  what  He  is.  '  This  is  life  eternal, 
that  they  should  know  Thee,  the  only  true  God, 
and  Him  whom  Thou  didst  send,  Jesus  Christ' 
(xvii.  3).  The  work  of  redemption,  to  borrow  the 
dogmatic  category,  is  interpreted  through  the 
prophetic  office  of  Christ  almost  exclusively.  It 
is  on  this  basis  that  the  ordinary  contrasts  are 
drawn  between  the  theology  of  St.  Paul  and  that 
of  the  fourth  gospel,  and  if  we  do  not  look  too 
closely  they  can  be  drawn  in  very  broad  lines ;  to 
change  the  figure,  they  can  be  put  in  epigram- 
matic and  striking  forms.  Thus  it  may  be  said 
that  in  St.  John  the  great  and  fundamental  idea  is 
revelation;  God  makes  Himself  known  to  men, 
and  in  making  Himself  known  He  redeems  them; 
to  see  Him  in  His  true  nature  is  to  be  withdrawn 
from  the  world  of  sin.  In  St.  Paul,  on  the  other 
hand,  revelation  is  through  redemption.  It  is 
because  God  in  Jesus  Christ  takes  the  responsi- 
bilities of  the  sinful  world  upon  Himself,  so 
reconciling  the  world  to  Himself,  that  we  know 
what  He  is :  the  relation  of  revelation  and  redemp- 
tion is  reversed.  It  agrees  with  this,  again,  that  as 
Schultz  has  put  it,*  in  St.  John  the  death  of  Jesus 

*  DU  Gottktit  Chriiti,  447.  '  Also  nicht  als  ein  Eimelereiptiss, 
nicht  in  Beziehung  vixi  das  Gesetx,  nicht  als  Opfer  in  gcwohnlichera 
Sinne  hat  der  Tod  Christi  seine  Bedeutung  (sc.  in  John).  Nicht 
um  da  Todes  willen  ist  dat  FUisih  Chiiiti  iij.'/iii; gewesen,  sondern 
dtr  Tod  ist  nothig gewesen  um  des  FUisches  willen. 


ST.  JOHN  AND  ST.  PAUL  153 

only  comes,  though  it  comes  inevitably,  because 
of  the  flesh ;  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and 
therefore  must  share  the  fate  of  all  flesh,  fulfil 
the  destiny  of  man  by  a  perfect  death  as  by 
a  perfect  life.  In  St.  Paul,  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  death  which  is  the  primary  thing;  except 
for  the  purpose  of  dying  for  man's  redemp- 
tion Christ  would  never  have  been  here  in  the 
flesh  at  all.  It  agrees  with  this  further,  so  it  is 
said,  that  whereas  in  St.  Paul  (as  in  the  synoptic 
gospels)  the  people  in  whom  Jesus  is  most  in- 
terested, and  who  are  most  interested  in  Him, 
are  the  sinners  who  need  redemption  and  whom 
He  died  to  redeem,  in  St.  John  the  sinners  have 
practically  disappeared,  and  the  persons  who 
have  an  interest  in  Jesus  are  the  relatively  good 
people  who  are  prepared  to  appreciate  the  revela- 
tion He  has  brought.  *  He  that  doeth  the  truth 
Cometh  to  the  light '  (iii.  21).  '  Every  one  that  is 
of  the  truth  heareth  My  voice '  (xviii.  37).  A 
sentence  like  x.  26, '  Ye  do  not  believe,  because 
ye  are  not  of  My  sheep,'  would,  according  to 
Holtzmann,  have  been  exactly  reversed  in  the 
synoptics ;  it  would  have  been,  '  You  are  not 
of  My  sheep,  because  you  do  not  believe.'  ^ 
The  trick  of  such  contrasts  is  easily  learned, 
but  does  not  strike  one  as  very  valuable.  It 
depends  for  its  plausibility  on  those  genera- 
lities in  which  there  is  always  some  delusion 
hidden.     It  depends  in  this  case,  for  example^ 

^  Neut.  Tkeologie,  ii.  p.  492. 


254  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

on  taking  the  somewhat  abstract  and  speculative 
standpoint  of  the  prologue,  and  allowing  that  to 
dominate  the  historical  parts  of  the  gospel.  But 
if  we  turn  from  the  prologue  to  the  gospel  itself, 
in  which  Jesus  actually  figures,  and  in  which 
His  words  and  deeds  are  before  us,  we  receive 
a  different  impression.  There  is  a  great  deal 
which  resists  the  speculative  solvent  supposed  to 
be  contained  in  the  Logos  theory.  There  is,  in 
particular,  a  great  deal  bearing  upon  the  death  of 
Christ  and  its  significance,  which  goes  to  dis- 
credit those  abstract  contrasts  which  have  just 
been  illustrated.  When  we  do  take  such  a  closer 
look  at  the  gospel,  what  do  we  find  ? 

We  find  that  the  death  of  Christ  in  a  great 
variety  of  ways  comes  to  the  front,  as  something 
which  is  of  peculiar  significance  for  the  evan- 
gelist, (i)  The  first  allusion  to  it  is  that  which 
is  put  into  the  lips  of  John  the  Baptist  in  i.  29 : 
'  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the 
sin  of  the  world.'  If  these  are  not  the  words  of 
the  Baptist,  they  are  all  the  more  the  words  of 
the  evangelist,  and  define  his  standpoint  from 
the  outset.  That  they  refer  to  the  death  of  Jesus 
does  not  seem  to  me  open  to  question.  Gr&nting 
that  6  aipojv  Tr}v  dfiapriav  tov  Koafiov  is  rightly 
rendered  qui  tollit  or  qui  nufert  peccatum  tnundi — 
who  takes  away,  not  who  takes  on  him,  the  sin 
of  the  world — we  have  to  take  the  subject  of  the 
sentence  into  consideration,  the  Lamb.     When 


DESTROY  THIS  TEMPLE  255 

sin  is  taken  away  by  a  lamb,  it  is  taken  away 
sacrificially ;  it  is  borne  off  by  being  in  some  sense 
— in  the  case  of  an  unintelligent  sacrifice,  only 
a  figurative  sense — borne.  It  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  the  conception  of  Christ's  death  as  a 
sacrifice  for  sin,  put  thus,  at  the  very  beginning 
of  the  gospel,  into  the  lips  of  the  great  witness 
to  Jesus,  is  meant  to  convey  decisively  the  evan- 
gelist's own  conception  of  Jesus  and  His  work.  He 
is  here  to  put  away  sin — that  sums  up  His  voca- 
tion ;  and  He  does  not  put  it  away  by  the  method 
of  denunciation,  like  the  Baptist,  but  by  the  sacri- 
ficial method,  in  which  it  has  to  be  borne.^ 

(2)  There  is  a  further  allusion  to  the  death  of 
Jesus  in  ii.  19 :  '  Destroy  this  temple,  and  in 
three  days  I  will  build  it  up.'  This,  according  to 
the  evangelist,  He  spoke  concerning  the  temple 
of  His  body.  The  evangelist's  interpretation 
has  been  treated  with  very  little  respect  by 
critics  of  all  schools.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
defend  it ;  but  I  repeat,  that  if  this  is  not  what 
Jesus  meant,  all  the  more  must  w6  recognise  the 
preoccupation  of  the  evangelist  himself  with  the 
idea.  He  drags  it  in,  we  must  believe,  where  it 
is  out  of  place,  only  because  it  is  the  centre  of  all 
his  thoughts  about  Jesus ;  it  is  in  it  he  instinc- 
tively seeks  the  key  to  anything  mysterious  in 
the  Master's  words. 

(3)  The  third  reference  is  indisputable,  though 

*  On  this  passage,  see  Garvie  in  Expositor,  May  1902,  p.  375  f. 


256  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

the  terms  in  which  it  is  expressed  may  not  be 
free  from  ambiguity.  It  is  that  in  ch.  iii.  14  in 
which  Jesus  is  represented  as  comparing  Himself 
to  the  brazen  serpent :  *  Even  so  must  the  Son 
of  Man  be  lifted  up.'  The  expression  'lifted  up' 
occurs  in  one  or  two  other  places,  and  the  same 
happy  or  unhappy  ambiguity  attaches  to  it  in 
all.  Thus  in  ch.  viii.  28  Jesus  says  to  the  Jews : 
'  When  ye  have  lifted  up  the  Son  of  Man,  then 
shall  ye  know  that  I  am  He,'  etc.  In  xii.  32  we 
have :  *  And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth, 
will  draw  all  men  to  Myself  Here  the  evan- 
gelist again  has  a  note  which  has  excited  the 
contempt  of  critics.  'This  He  said,  indicating 
by  what  kind  of  death  He  was  to  die'  (xii.  33). 
All  that  the  Jews  seem  to  have  taken  out  of  the 
word  was  the  idea  of '  removal ';  for  they  contrast 
the  inevitable  '  uplifting  '  of  the  Son  of  Man  with 
the  '  abiding  of  the  Christ  for  ever.'  Here  it  is  by 
no  means  necessary  to  join  in  the  common  cen- 
sure of  the  evangelist.  Where  the  '  uplifting '  is 
spoken  of  indefinitely,  it  may  be  conceived,  pro- 
perly enough,  to  include  the  exaltation  ;  but 
where  it  is  spoken  of  as  the  act  of  the  Jews 
(viii.  28),  and  compared  to  the  elevation  of  the 
brazen  serpent  on  a  pole  (iii.  14  f ),  the  allusion  to 
the  Cross  is  unmistakable.  There  is,  indeed,  an 
exact  parallel  to  it  in  Ezra  vi.  1 1  (R.V.),  though 
the  word  inlrovp  is  not  used:  'Also  I  have  made 
ft  decree  that  whosoever  shall  alter  this  word, 


THE  SON  OF  MAN  LIFTED  UP        257 

let  timber  be  pulled  down  from  his  house,  and 
let  him  be  lifted  up  and  fastened  thereon.*  That 
was  the  death  which  Jesus  died,  and  to  such  a 
death  the  evangelist  understood  Him  to  refer 
,when  he  used  the  word  which  he  represents  by 
vylrovv.  The  word  had  the  advantage — for  no 
doubt  it  was  counted  an  advantage — of  carrying 
a  double  meaning,  of  raising  the  mind  at  once 
to  the  cross  and  to  the  heavenly  throne.  But 
nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the  writer,  or  of 
Jesus  as  He  is  set  before  us  in  this  gospel,  than 
the  unification  of  these  two  things.  They  are 
inseparable  parts  of  the  same  whole.  Hence  the 
peculiar  use  of  the  term  '  glorify  '  {e.g.  '  Now  is 
the  Son  of  Man  glorified,'  xiii.  31)  to  express 
what  happens  to  Christ  in  His  death.  There  is 
no  conception  of  a  humiliation  in  death  followed 
and  rewarded  by  an  exaltation  ;  on  the  contrary, 
Christ  is  lifted  up  and  ascends  through  His  death : 
His  glory  is  revealed  in  that  whole  experience 
which  death  initiates,  and  into  which  it  enters, 
more  than  in  all  His  miracles.  The  mere  fact 
that  words  like  xr^mOrivat  and  So^aaOrjvai  are 
the  evangelist's  chosen  words  to  describe  Christ's 
death  shows  how  thought  had  been  preoccupied 
with  it,  and  how,  the  prologue  notwithstanding, 
the  Christian  soul  felt  itself  here  at  the  heart  of 
the  revelation  and  of  the  redeeming  power  of 
God. 

(4)  The  death  of  Christ  is  again  alluded  to,  in 
R 


258  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

all  probability,  in  chap,  vi.,  and  that  in  close  con- 
nection with  the  life  which  is  His  supreme  gift  to 
men ;  He  speaks  there  of  His  flesh,  which  He 
will  give  for  the  life  of  the  world,  and  of  eating 
the  flesh  and  drinking  the  blood  of  the  Son  of 
Man  (vi.  51-53).  If  it  were  possible,  as  I  do  not 
think  it  is,  to  deny  that  there  is  any  reference  in 
this  chapter  to  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper,  it  might  be  possible  also  to  deny  that 
it  contained  any  reference  to  Christ's  death. 
Verses  like  those  just  quoted  would  merely  be 
an  enigmatic  and  defiant  manner  (such  as  we 
frequently  find  at  the  close  of  a  discussion  in 
the  fourth  gospel)  of  putting  the  general  truth  of 
V.  57 :  *  He  that  eateth  Me,  he  it  is  who  shall 
live  because  of  Me.'  *  My  flesh  '  and  '  My  blood ' 
would  in  this  case  only  be  a  more  concrete  and 
pictorial  '  Me';  there  would  not  of  necessity  be 
any  reference  to  the  death.  But  when  we  re- 
member the  period  at  which  the  gospel  came  into 
use,  the  sacramental  allusion  (see  below,  p.  276  ff.), 
both  here  and  in  the  third  chapter,  seems  to  me 
quite  indisputable ;  and  this  carries  with  it  the 
allusion  to  Christ's  death  as  in  some  way  or 
other  the  life  of  the  world. 

(5)  In  the  tenth  chapter  we  again  come  upon 
passages  in  which  there  is  nothing  equivocal.  *  I 
am  the  Good  Shepherd  :  the  Good  Shepherd 
layeth  down  His  life  for  the  sheep'  (x.  il). 
This,  it  might  be  said,  is  only  an  ideal  way  of 


THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  959 

putting  it ;  it  is  what  the  Good  Shepherd  would 
do  if  the  situation  emerged  which  required  it. 
But  it  is  not  put  so  by  the  evangelist.  The 
need  has  emerged,  and  the  laying  down  of  His 
life  with  a  view  to  its  resumption  is  made  the 
sum  and  substance  of  the  vocation  of  Jesus. 
'  Therefore  doth  My  Father  love  Me,  because  I 
lay  down  My  life  that  I  may  take  it  again.  No 
one  taketh  it  from  Me,  but  I  lay  it  down  of  My- 
self. I  have  authority  to  lay  it  down,  and  I  have 
authority  to  take  it  again.  This  commandment 
have  I  received  from  My  Father'  (x.  17  f). 
Christ's  death  is  not  an  incident  of  His  life,  it 
is  the  aim  of  it.  The  laying  down  of  His  life 
is  not  an  accident  in  His  career,  it  is  His 
vocation  ;  it  is  that  in  which  the  divine  pur- 
pose of  His  life  is  revealed, 

(6)  A  peculiar  solemnity  attaches  in  the  gospel 
to  a  sixth  allusion  to  Christ's  death,  that  which 
is  made  in  the  unconscious  prophecy  of  Caiaphas. 
A  prophecy  is  that  which  a  man  speaks  under 
the  impulse  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  evangelist 
means  us  to  understand  that  a  divine  authority 
attaches  for  once  to  the  words  of  this  bad  man. 
'  Being  high  priest  that  fateful  year,  he  pro- 
phesied that  Jesus  was  to  die  for  the  nation, 
and  not  for  the  nation  only,  but  also  to  gather 
together  in  one  the  children  of  God  who  were 
scattered  abroad.*  Some  interest  of  the  nation, 
and   this   great   interest  of  the  family  of  God, 


26o  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

were  conditioned  by  the  death  of  Jesus,  how- 
ever that  death  may  be  related  to  the  ends  it 
was  to  achieve. 

(7)  In  the  twelfth  chapter  there  are  several 
significant  allusions.  There  is  the  corn  of  wheat 
which,  unless  it  fall  into  the  ground  and  die, 
abides  alone,  but  if  it  die,  bears  much  fruit 
(xii.  24) — a  similitude  in  which  the  influence  of 
Jesus  is  made  to  depend  directly  on  His  death ; 
and  in  close  connection  with  this  there  is  the 
anticipation  of  the  near  and  awful  future,  the 
shadow  of  which  struck  dark  and  cold  upon  the 
Saviour's  soul.  *  Now  is  My  soul  troubled,  and 
what  shall  I  say  ?  Father,  save  Me  from  this  hour. 
But  for  this  cause  came  I  unto  this  hour '  (xii.  27). 
'This  hour'  is  the  great  crisis  in  the  life  of  Jesus, 
the  hour  which  no  one  could  anticipate  (vii.  30, 
viii.  20),  but  from  which,  now  that  it  has  come, 
He  will  not  shrink.  It  has  come,  in  the  sense 
already  explained,  as  the  hour  in  which  the  Son 
of  Man  is  to  be  glorified:  the  hour  in  which  He 
is  to  drink  the  cup  which  the  Father  gives  Him 
to  drink,  and  to  crown  the  work  the  Father  has 
given  Him  to  do.  The  way  in  which  He  is 
moved  by  it,  shrinks  from  it,  accepts  it,  reveals 
the  place  it  holds  in  His  mind,  and  in  that  of  the 
evangelist  also. 

(8)  Just  as  the  Lamb  of  God  at  the  beginning 
of  the  gospel  (i.  29)  connected  it  with  Isa.  liii., 
80  does  the  quotation  in  chap.  xii.  38  give  us  the 


THE  GREATEST  LOVE  261 

same  key  to  its  interpretation  at  the  end. 
'Though  He  had  done  so  many  signs  before 
them,  they  did  not  believe  on  Him,  that  the 
word  of  Isaiah  the  prophet  might  be  fulfilled 
which  he  said :  Lord,  who  hath  believed  our 
report,  and  to  whom  is  the  arm  of  the  Lord 
revealed  ?*  Taken  alone,  this  passage  could  not 
be  made  to  bear  any  special  reference  to  the 
death  of  Christ  or  to  its  interpretation  ;  but 
occurring  as  it  does  after  the  triple  and  unmis- 
takable references  of  the  corn  of  wheat,  the 
dreaded  hour,  and  the  lifting  up  from  the  earth 
(vv.  24,  27,  32),  it  seems  to  me  rather  probable 
than  otherwise  that  it  is  meant  to  bring  before 
the  reader's  mind,  by  a  sufficient  hint,  the  fifty- 
third  chapter  of  Isaiah,  as  the  Old  Testament, 
and  therefore  the  divine,  solution  of  the  mys- 
teriously disappointing  career  of  Jesus. 

(9)  If  this  instance  is  reckoned  doubtful,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  about  the  one  in  the  fifteenth 
chapter :  *  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this, 
that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends' 
(xv.  13).  It  is  characteristic  of  St.  John,  we  are 
told,  as  opposed  to  St.  Paul,  that  in  St.  John  Jesus 
died  for  His  friends ;  St.  Paul  thinks  of  Him  as 
dying  for  His  enemies  (Rom.  v.  10).  It  is  an  inept 
remark.  Jesus  at  the  moment  is  speaking  to  His 
friends,  and  about  the  supreme  pledge  of  love  He 
is  going  to  give  them.  In  other  places,  St.  John, 
like  St.  Paul,  represents  Him  as  giving  His  flesh 


262  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

'for  the  life  of  the  world'  (vi.  51),  and  lays  stress 
on  the  fact  that  it  is  God's  love  for  the  world, 
in  its  all-inclusive  yet  individualising  intensity, 
which  explains  His  'lifting  up'  (iii.  14).  This  is 
the  great  thing  on  which  they  agree  :  the  highest 
revelation  of  love  is  made  in  the  death  of  Jesus. 

(10)  A  singular  and  striking  allusion  to  His 
death  has  been  found  in  our  Lord's  intercessory 
prayer :  '  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  Myself  that 
they  also  may  be  sanctified  in  truth  *  (xvii.  19). 
The  meaning  of  this  will  be  considered  presently. 

And  finally  (11)  there  is  the  story  of  the 
Passion  itself.  A  peculiar  significance  attaching 
to  the  death  of  Jesus  is  implied  {a)  by  the  fulness 
with  which  the  story  is  told  ;  (b)  by  the  references 
in  it  to  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  which  mean 
that  a  divine  purpose  was  being  carried  out  by 
it  (xix.  24=  Ps.  xxii.  19;  xix.  28f.  =  Ps.  Ixix.  22; 
xix.  36f.  =  Ex.  xii.  46,  Zech.  xii.  10);  and  (c)  by 
the  peculiarly  emphatic  attestation  given  to  some 
mysterious  circumstances  attendant  on  it,  the 
sense  of  which  might  have  remained  hidden  from 
us  but  for  the  interpretation  of  them  provided 
in  the  first  epistle.  'One  of  the  soldiers  with 
a  spear  pierced  His  side,  and  there  came  out 
immediately  blood  and  water.  And  he  that  hath 
seen  hath  borne  witness,  and  his  witness  is  true, 
and  he  knoweth  that  he  saith  true,  that  ye  also 
may  believe.  For  these  things  took  place  that 
the   Scripture    might  be   fulfilled  :    A   bone  of 


ITS  PLACE  IN  ST.  JOHN  263 

Him  shall  not  be  broken.  And  again,  another 
Scripture  says  :  They  shall  look  on  Him  whom 
they  pierced  '  (xix.  36  f.,  cf.  1st  epistle,  v.  6). 

This  series  of  passages  has  not  been  cited  at 
random,  but  to  dissipate  the  impression  which 
many  people  have,  and  which  some  writers  on 
New  Testament  theology  propagate,  that  the 
death  of  Christ  has  no  place  in  the  fourth  gospel 
corresponding  to  that  which  it  has  elsewhere  in 
the  New  Testament.  I  think  they  are  sufficient 
to  dissipate  such  an  impression.  No  doubt  there 
is  much  in  the  fourth  gospel  which  makes  it 
plausible  to  say,  St.  Paul  deals  with  the  work  of 
Christ,  St.  John  with  His  person  ;  for  St.  Paul, 
Christ  only  lives  to  die  ;  for  St.  John,  He  dies  be- 
cause death  is  the  only  issue  from  life  ;  but  such 
contrasts  do  as  much  to  mislead  as  to  illumine. 
As  soon  as  we  are  past  the  prologue,  into 
the  scenery  of  what  Jesus  actually  said,  did, 
thought,  feared,  and  suffered,  we  see  that  His 
death  really  fills  the  place  it  does  everywhere 
in  the  New  Testament,  and  has  the  same 
decisive  importance.  Indeed,  the  constant  com- 
plaint of  commentators  is  that  the  evangelist 
drags  it  in  at  inappropriate  places,  a  complaint 
which,  so  far  as  it  is  justified,  only  shows  how 
completely  his  mind  was  absorbed  and  domin- 
ated by  the  Cross. 

But  does  this  prominence  of  the  death  of  Jesus 
in  the  gospel  throw  any  light  upon  its  meanirg? 


264     '         THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

Is  it  defined  by  St.  John  (or  by  Jesus)  in  any  such 
relations  as  by  St.  Paul  ?  Allowing  for  the  fact 
that  the  writer's  mind  is  not  of  a  dialectical  turn 
like  that  of  St.  Paul,  but  given  rather  to  intuition 
than  to  reflection — in  other  words,  to  the  con- 
templation of  results  rather  than  of  processes, 
of  ends  rather  than  of  means  or  conditions — we 
must  answer  these  questions  in  the  affirmative. 

In  St.  John,  as  in  St  Paul,  Christ's  death  is  set 
in  relation  to  the  love  and  saving  will  of  God. 
'  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only 
begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him 
should  not  perish,  but  have  eternal  life'  (iii.  i6). 
Again,  in  St.  John  as  in  St.  Paul,  Christ's  death  is 
related  to  His  own  love :  '  Greater  love  hath  no 
man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for 
his  friends*  (xv.  13).  This  is  the  favourite  text 
of  Abaelard,  quoted  again  and  again  as  having 
the  whole  secret  of  the  atonement  in  it :  every- 
thing, according  to  Abaelard,  lies  in  this,  that 
there  is  love  in  Christ's  death,  with  power  in 
it  to  evoke  love,  the  response  of  love  being  the 
whole  experience  of  salvation.  The  more  fully 
Christ's  love  wins  from  us  the  answer  of  love,  the 
more  fully  are  we  justified  and  saved  ;  that  is 
all.*      Without  raising  the  question  whether  the 

*  See  Abaelard  in  Migne,  vol.  178,  p.  836  :  '  Justior  quoque,  id 
e»t  amplius  Dominum  diligens,  quisque  fit  post  passionem  Chrisli 
quam  ante,  quia  amplius  in  amorem  accendit  completum  bene- 
ficium  quam  speralum.  Redeuiptio  itaque  nostra  est  ilia  summa 
in  nobis  per  passionem  Christi  dilectio  quae  non  solum  a  ser< 


LOVE  AND  OBEDIENCE  a65 

act  of  Christ  in  laying  down  His  life  must  not  be 
related  in  some  real  way  to  our  real  necessities 
before  it  can  either  be  or  be  conceived  to  be 
an  act  of  love  at  all,  we  may  notice  that  its 
character  as  connected  with  His  love  is  again 
emphasised  in  the  allegory  of  the  Good  Shep- 
herd. The  perfect  freedom  with  which  Christ 
acts  the  shepherd's  part,  on  to  the  final  sacrifice 
which  it  demands,  is  apparently  the  characteristic 
of  His  work  to  which  He  attaches  the  greatest 
importance.  And  it  is  so  because  it  is  through 
the  freeness  with  which  the  surrender  of  life 
is  made  that  the  love  which  is  its  motive  is 
revealed.  *  I  lay  down  My  life  of  Myself.  No 
one  taketh  it  from  Me.  I  have  authority  to  lay 
it  down,  and  I  have  authority  to  take  it  again ' 
(x.  17  f.)  This  spontaneity  on  the  part  of  Jesus, 
when  it  is  put  in  relation  to  the  love  of  the  Father 
in  giving  the  Son,  appears  as  obedience.  The 
authority  or  liberty  He  has  to  lay  down  His  life 
and  to  take  it  again  is  a  commandment  He  has 
received  from  the  Father.  Equally  with  St.  Paul 
or  with  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews,  St.  John  could 
use  the  term  *  obedience '  to  describe  the  whole 
work  of  Christ ;  but  just  as  with  them,  with  him 
too  it  is  loving  obedience  to  a  will  of  love,  an 

vitute  peccati  liberal,  sed  veram  nobis  libertatem  filiorum  Dei 
acquirit,  ut  amore  ejus  potius  quam  timore  cuncta  impleamus,  qui 
nobis  tantam  exhibuit  gratiam  qua  major  inveniri  ipso  attestants 
non  potest.'  He  then  refers  to  John  xv.  13,  Luke  xii.  491 
Rom.  ▼.  5. 


266  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

attitude  at  once  to  God's  purpose  and  to  man's 
need  which  makes  the  Passion  the  sublimest  of 
actions,  and  justifies  the  paradox  of  the  gospel 
that  the  Cross  is  a  'lifting  up'  or  a  glorifying 
of  Jesus. 

It  is  possible,  however,  to  go  further  in  defining 
the  death  of  Christ  in  the  fourth  gospel.  Pro- 
ceeding as  it  does  from  the  love  of  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  it  is  nevertheless  not  conceived  as 
arbitrary.  It  is  free,  but  there  is  a  rational 
necessity  for  it.  The  Son  of  Man  must  be  lifted 
up  if  He  is  to  save  those  who  believe.  The  corn 
of  wheat  must  fall  into  the  ground  and  die  if  it 
is  not  to  abide  alone.  Not  much,  indeed,  is  said 
to  explain  this.  The  various  ends  secured  by 
Christ's  death — the  advantage  of  the  flock  for 
which  as  the  Good  Shepherd  He  lays  down  His 
life  (x.  ii),  the  eternal  life  of  those  who  believe 
in  Him  (iii.  14  f.),  the  rallying  round  Him  as  a 
centre  of  the  scattered  children  of  God,  so  that 
He  becomes  the  head  of  a  new  humanity  (xi.  52) : 
these,  no  doubt,  are  all  dependent  upon  it  some- 
how ;  but  how,  the  evangelist  is  at  no  pains  to 
tell.  But  we  do  no  violence  to  his  thought  when 
we  put  this  and  that  in  the  gospel  together  in 
order  to  discern  what  he  does  not  explicitly  say. 
Everything,  we  have  seen,  comes  from  the  love 
of  God  ;  the  death  of  Christ  is  to  be  construed 
in  harmony  with  this,  not  in  any  antagonism  to 
it.     But  the  love  of  God  to  the  world  is  never 


ITS  INTERPRETATION  IN  ST.  JOHN     267 

conceived  in  Scripture  abstractly.  It  is  not 
manifested  in  some  evolutionary  process  which 
is  necessarily  determined  d,  priori^  as  might  be 
hastily  inferred  from  the  prologue  to  the  fourth 
gospel ;  to  conceive  it  so  would  be  to  deny  its 
grace.  It  is  conceived,  practically,  in  relation 
to  definite  needs  of  man  which  it  meets;  it  is 
manifested  not  on  the  analogy  of  natural  forces, 
which  simply  are  what  they  are,  but  on  the 
analogy  of  the  free  actions  of  men,  which  are 
determined  by  specific  motives.  To  deny  this  is 
to  lose  the  living  and  gracious  God  of  revelation, 
and  to  take  in  His  place  a  metaphysical  phantom. 
God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only- 
begotten  Son.  The  giving  of  the  Son  at  least 
includes  the  giving  of  Him  to  that  death  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  pervades  the  gospel  from  begin- 
ning to  end ;  indeed,  the  death  is  emphasised  in 
the  immediate  context  (iii.  14  f.).  Nor  are  we  left 
without  sufficiently  clear  hints  as  to  the  necessity 
which  determined  the  gift.  In  the  passage  just 
referred  to  (iii.  16),  we  see  that  apart  from  it  men 
are  lost;  they  perish,  instead  of  having  eternal 
life.  St.  John's  mind  revolves  round  these  ultimate 
ideas,  death  and  life,  rather  than  their  moral 
equivalents  or  presuppositions,  sin  and  righteous- 
ness ;  but  we  cannot  suppose  that  he  did  not 
include  in  'death'  and  'life'  all  that  we  mean 
by  these  latter  words.  That  he  did  include  all 
this  we  see  when  the  consequence  of  refusing  the 


268  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

gift  of  God  is  presented  in  the  terrible  word  of 
Jesus,  '  If  ye  believe  not  that  I  am  He,  ye  shall 
die  in  your  sins'  (viii.  24)  ;  or  when  the  evangelist 
himself  writes,  *  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son 
hath  eternal  life ;  he  that  disobeyeth  the  Son 
shall  not  see  life,  but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on 
him  '  (iii.  36).  The  love  of  God,  then,  represented 
in  the  gift  of  Christ,  has  in  view,  according  to  the 
fourth  gospel,  the  sin  of  the  world,  its  exposure 
to  the  Divine  wrath,  its  perishing  if  left  to  itself; 
and  the  gift  in  which  that  love  is  embodied,  if  it 
is  to  be  intelligently  apprehended  at  all,  must 
also  have  a  definite  relation  to  this  concrete  case. 
If  it  delivers  men  from  perishing  under  the  wrath 
of  God,  and  from  the  sin  by  which  that  wrath  is 
evoked,  then  an  intelligible  relation  to  sin  and 
to  the  divine  wrath  is  implicit  in  the  writer's 
consciousness  of  it,  whether  he  has  given  articu- 
late expression  to  such  a  relation  or  not.  It  is 
quite  legitimate  here  to  emphasise  such  passages 
as  i.  29,  where,  as  has  been  already  shown, 
a  sacrificial  deliverance  from  sin  is  represented 
as  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  gospel ;  and 
XX.  23,  where  the  power  which  the  Risen  Lord 
confers  on  His  disciples  in  virtue  of  all  that  He 
has  achieved  is  a  power  connected  with  the  for- 
giveness of  sins.  It  may  seem  to  some  a  less 
obvious  instance,  but  the  striking  word  of  Jesus 
in  xvii.  19  points  in  the  same  direction  :  '  For 
their  sakes  I  sanctify  Myseli,  that  they  also  may 


CHRIST  SANCTIFYING  HIMSELF      ^69 

be  sanctified  in  truth.'  What  men  needed  was 
to  be  sanctified,  that  is,  to  be  consecrated  to  God. 
It  was  not  in  their  power — surely  no  reason  can 
be  conceived  for  this  but  that  which  lies  in  their 
sin — to  consecrate  themselves,  and  what  they 
were  not  able  to  do  for  themselves  Christ  did  for 
them  in  His  own  Person.  He  consecrated  Him- 
self to  God  in  His  death.  That  the  reference  is 
to  His  death  does  not  seem  open  to  question  ; 
the  present  tense,  dyid^o),  which  suggests  some- 
thing going  on  at  the  moment,  and  the  circum- 
stances of  the  Speaker,  whose  mind  is  full  of  what 
is  at  hand,  put  out  of  court  the  idea  that  the 
word  is  intended  to  describe  His  life  as  a  whole. 
His  life  was  past,  and  now,  in  His  own  Person, 
through  death,  He  is  about  to  establish  between 
God  and  man  a  relation  which  men  could  never 
have  established  for  themselves,  but  into,  which 
they  can  truly  enter,  and  into  which  they  will  be 
drawn  once  it  is  established  by  Him.  This  seems 
to  me  the  exact  equivalent  of  the  Pauline  doctrine 
that  Christ  dies  our  death  that  we  may  be  drawn 
into  the  fellowship  of  His  death,  and  so  put  right 
with  God.  He  acts — *  I  sanctify  Myself;  men 
are  acted  on — '  that  they  also  may  be  sanctified.' 
He  establishes  the  reconciliation ;  they,  to  use 
Pauline  language,  receive  it  (Rom.  v.  11). 

I  have  spoken  of  the  gospel  throughout  as  if 
it  expressed  the  mind  of  the  writer  rather  than 
that  of  the  Subject.    The  necessity  of  such  a  con- 


a70  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

cession  to  the  current  criticism  is  shaken  when 
we  pass  to  the  epistle,  for  there  we  find  the  death 
of  Christ  and  its  significance  put  in  a  light  which 
more  imperatively  recalls  the  other  New  Testa- 
ment epistles,  and  which  differentiates  this  one 
to  a  considerable  extent  from  the  gospel.  The 
contrast  with  the  epistle  on  this  very  point  is 
one  of  the  evidences  that  the  gospel  is  truer  to 
its  assumed  historical  position  than  many  would 
admit;  it  is  not  his  own  mind  the  writer  wishes 
to  impart,  but  the  mind  of  Christ ;  and  though 
it  is  certainly  by  the  same  hand  as  the  epistle, 
he  does  not  feel  at  liberty  to  say  everything  in 
it  that  the  epistle  allows  him  to  say. 

For  example,  we  frequejitly  find  in  the  epistle 
explicitly  stated,  what  we  have  as  a  rule  to  infer 
in  the  gospel,  the  connection  between  the  death 
of  Christ  and  sin.  Thus  in  i.  7 :  '  The  blood  of 
Jesus  His  Son  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin.'  In 
ii.  if.:'  These  things  write  I  unto  you,  that  ye  sin 
not.  And  if  any  one  sin,  we  have  an  advocate  with 
the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous.  And  He 
Himself  is  a  propitiation  for  our  sins  :  and  not  for 
ours  only,  but  also  for  the  whole  world.'  In  ii.  12  : 
'  I  write  unto  you,  little  children,  because  your 
sins  are  forgiven  you  for  His  name's  sake.'  In 
iii.  5  :  'Ye  know  that  He  was  manifested  to  take 
away  sins.'  In  iv.  10 :  'Not  that  we  loved  God, 
but  that  He  loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son  a  propi- 
tiation for  our  sins.'    The  whole  Person  and  Work 


THE  CLEANSING  BLOOD  ayi 

of  Christ,  we  see  here,  His  whole  manifestation  in 
the  world,  but  in  some  signal  way  His  death,  are 
set  in  relation  to  sin.  It  is  characteristic  of  the 
writer,  here  as  in  the  gospel,  that  his  interest  is 
in  the  end  or  result,  the  actual  cleansing  of  the 
soul  from  sin,  its  sanctification  not  in  the  sense  of 
I  Cor.  vi.  II,  or  of  Heb.  x.  29,  but  in  the  sense  of 
modern  Protestant  theology.  This  sanctifica- 
tion is  dependent  on  the  death  of  Christ.  If  we 
walk  in  the  light  as  God  is  in  the  light,  the  blood 
of  Jesus  His  Son  continuously  and  progressively 
cleanses  us  from  all  sin :  our  sanctification  is 
gradually  achieved  under  its  influence  (i.  7).  It 
is  the  removal  of  sin  in  this  sense  which  is  re- 
ferred to  also  in  iii.  5  :  '  He  was  manifested,  that 
He  might  put  sins  away.'  It  is  by  no  means 
necessary,  for  the  understanding  of  the  evangelist 
here,  that  we  should  adopt  the  strange  caprice 
which  fascinated  Westcott,  and  distinguish  with 
him  in  the  blood  of  Christ  (i)  His  death,  and  (2) 
His  life ;  or  (i)  His  blood  shed,  and  (2)  His  blood 
offered;  or  (i)  His  life  laid  down,  and  (2)  His 
life  liberated  and  made  available  for  men.^  No 
doubt  these  distinctions  were  meant  to  safeguard 
a  real  religious  interest :  they  were  meant  to 
secure  the  truth  that  it  is  a  living  Saviour  who 
saves,  and  that  He  actually  does  save,  from  sin, 
and  that  He  does  so  in  the  last  resort  by  the 

»  See  Westcott,   The  EpUtks  of  St.  John,  p.  34  fiL    Epistli 
to  tko  Hebrews,  p.  293  S. 


aja  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

communication  of  His  own  life  ;  but  I  venture  to 
say  that  a  more  groundless  fancy  never  haunted 
and  troubled  the  interpretation  of  any  part  of 
Scripture  than  that  which  is  introduced  by  this 
distinction  into  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and 
the  First  Epistle  of  John.  The  New  Testament 
writers,  though  they  speak  often  of  Christ's 
death,  never  think  of  a  dead  Christ :  their  Christ 
is  One  who  became  dead  and  is  alive  for  evermore, 
and  in  His  immortal  life  the  virtue  of  His  death 
is  present.  He  did  something  when  He  died, 
and  that  something  He  continues  to  make  effec- 
tive for  men  in  His  Risen  Life ;  but  there  is  no 
meaning  in  saying  that  by  His  death  His  life — 
as  something  other  than  His  death — is  'liberated ' 
and  '  made  available '  for  men  :  on  the  contrary, 
what  makes  His  risen  life  significant  and  a  sav- 
ing power  for  sinners  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  this,  that  His  death  is  in  it ;  it  is  the  life  of 
one  who  by  dying  has  dealt  with  the  fatal  neces- 
sities of  man's  situation,  and  in  doing  so  has  given 
a  supreme  demonstration  of  His  love. 

This  connection  of  ideas  becomes  apparent 
when  we  notice  that  St.  John  uses  a  word  akin  to 
St.  Paul's  tKaa-rrjpLov  in  describing  the  relation  of 
Christ  to  sin.  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous,  he 
says,  is  the  iXaafi6<i  for  our  sins  (ii.  2) ;  and 
again,  he  says,  God  of  His  own  accord  loved 
us,  and  sent  His  Son  a  propitiation  for  our 
sins  (iv.  10).     It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that 


BLOOD  AND  PROPITIATION  273 

St.  John  used  this  word  in  any  other  relations 
than  those  in  which  it  is  found  (or  in  which  the 
cognate  terms  are  found)  in  Hebrews  or  in  St. 
Paul.  The  characteristic  words  of  religion  can- 
not be  applied  in  new  ways  at  will.  Now  the 
idea  of  IXaa^ih^  or  propitiation  is  not  an  insulated 
idea — indeed  there  cannot  be  any  such  thing. 
It  is  part  of  a  system  of  ideas,  which  we  have 
to  reconstruct  with  the  means  at  our  disposal. 
It  is  related,  for  one  thing,  to  the  idea  of  sin. 
It  is  sin,  according  to  the  uniform  teaching  of 
the  New  Testament,  which  creates  the  necessity 
for  it,  and  which  is  in  some  sense  the  object  of  it. 
In  other  words,  sin  is  the  problem  with  which 
/X,a<r/i09  deals.  St.  John  agrees  with  all  New 
Testament  writers  in  regarding  sin  as  a  problem. 
It  cannot  simply  be  ignored  or  suppressed ; 
something  has  to  be  done  with  it,  and  the 
effective  something  (when  its  removal  is  in 
view)  has  been  done  by  Christ  the  tXac/io?. 
Again,  the  idea  of  IXaafi6<i  is  related  to  the 
ideas  of  sacrifice  and  intercession.  When  St. 
John  says  that  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous  is  the 
propitiation  for  our  sins,  this  is  implied.  He 
has  spoken  almost  immediately  before  about  the 
d/ood  of  Jesus  cleansing  from  all  sin  ;  he  speaks 
further  on  with  significant  emphasis  about  His 
coming  in  Hood  as  well  as  in  water  (v.  6)  ;  and 
he  no  doubt  conceived  Jesus  as  set  forth,  as 
St.  Paul  has  it  (Rom.  iii.  25),  in  His  blood  in 

S 


a 74  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

this  propitiatory  character.  Further,  the  idea 
of  i\aafji6<;  by  being  related  to  sin  is  related 
also  to  some  divine  law  or  order  which  sin  has 
violated,  and  which  is  acknowledged  in  its  in- 
violable rights  by  the  i\aafi6<i.  This  is  what 
is  meant  when  the  propitiation  is  described  as 
Jesus  Christ  i/ie  Righteous.  All  that  is  divine, 
all  the  moral  order  of  the  world,  all  that  we 
mean  by  the  Law  of  God,  has  right  done  by 
it  in  the  death  of  Christ.  Sin,  in  that  sense, 
is  neutralised  by  the  propitiation,  and  if  men 
could  enter  into  it,  or  if  the  benefit  of  it  could 
come  to  them,  sin  would  no  more  be  a  barrier 
to  their  fellowship  with  God.  The  propitiation 
would  draw  them  to  God  and  put  them  right 
with  Him,  and  as  it  held  their  hearts  more 
closely  it  would  more  effectually  and  thoroughly 
cleanse  them  from  every  taint  of  sin.  The 
power  of  sanctification  is  lodged  in  it  as  well 
as  the  condition  of  the  sinner's  primary  accept- 
ance with  God.  The  first  of  these — the  power 
of  sanctification — preponderates  in  the  epistle; 
but  it  would  be  as  complete  a  negation  of  its 
teaching,  as  of  that  of  every  New  Testament 
writing,  to  say  that  the  second — the  sinner's 
acceptance  with  God  —  is  dependent  upon  it. 
The  very  reverse  is  the  case.  The  sin  of  the 
whole  world  has  been  atoned  for,  as  the  apostle 
expressly  asserts  (ii.  2);  and  it  is  on  the  basis  of 
this  work  finished  for  all,  and  assumed  to  underlie 


PROPITIATION  AND  LOVE  375 

everything,  that  the  progressive  purification  of 
the  Christian  proceeds.  It  is  the  virtue  of  the 
i\aa-fi6^,  in  which  all  sin  has  been  dealt  with 
for  its  removal,  and  dealt  with  according  to  the 
realities  of  the  divine  law  involved  in  the  case, 
which  eventually  effects  sanctilication. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  thing  in  the  first 
Epistle  of  St.  John  is  the  manner  in  which  the 
propitiation  of  Christ  is  related  to  the  love  of 
God.  The  connection  of  the  two  things  is,  as 
we  have  seen,  universal  in  the  New  Testament. 
No  one  could  teach  more  emphatically  than  St. 
Paul,  for  example,  that  it  is  to  the  love  of  God 
we  owe  the  presence  of  Jesus  in  the  world  and 
His  work  for  men.  No  one  could  contrast  what 
the  love  of  God  has  done  for  us  in  Christ  more 
emphatically  than  St.  Paul  does  with  the  utmost 
which  men  will  do  from  love  for  each  other. 
But  St.  John  rises  above  all  comparisons  to  an 
absolute  point  of  view  at  which  propitiation  and 
love  become  ideas  which  explain  each  other, 
and  which  have  no  adequate  illustration  apart 
from  each  other.  He  not  only  defines  the  pro- 
pitiation by  relation  to  love — God  Himself  loved 
us  and  sent  His  Son  a  propitiation  for  our  sins 
(iv.  10);  He  defines  love  by  relation  to  the 
propitiation — in  this  have  we  come  to  know 
what  love  is,  that  He  laid  down  His  life  for 
us  (iii.  16).  The  emphasis  in  this  last  sentence 
is   on   the    expressly   contrasted   words    tVeZvoi 


376  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

vTT^p  rjfiMv.  It  is  the  contrast  of  what  He  is 
and  of  what  we  are,  of  the  sinless  Son  of  God 
and  the  sinful  sons  of  men,  in  which  the  nerve 
of  the  proposition  lies.  So  far  from  finding 
any  kind  of  contrast  between  love  and  pro- 
pitiation, the  apostle  can  convey  no  idea  of  love 
to  any  one  except  by  pointing  to  the  propitia- 
tion— love  is  what  is  manifested  there ;  and  he 
can  give  no  account  of  the  propitiation  but  by 
saying,  Behold  what  manner  of  love.  For  him, 
to  say  *  God  is  love '  is  exactly  the  same  as  to 
say  'God  has  in  His  Son  made  atonement  for 
the  sin  of  the  world.'  If  the  propitiatory  death 
of  Jesus  is  eliminated  from  the  love  of  God,  it 
might  be  unfair  to  say  that  the  love  of  God  is 
robbed  of  all  meaning,  but  it  is  certainly  robbed 
of  its  apostolic  meaning.  It  has  no  longer  that 
meaning  which  goes  deeper  than  sin,  sorrow, 
and  death,  and  which  recreates  life  in  the 
adoring  joy,  wonder,  and  purity  of  the  first 
Epistle  of  St.  John. 

In  speaking  of  the  death  of  Christ,  it  would 
not  be  just  either  to  the  gospel  or  to  the 
Epistle  of  St.  John  to  ignore  the  place  held  in 
both  by  the  sacraments.  That  place  has  been 
ignored  by  some  and  disputed  by  others ;  but 
if  we  realise  the  date  at  which  both  documents 
were  written,  the  place  which  the  sacraments 
had  In  Christian  worship  at  the  time,  and  the 
incvitableness   with  which    ordinary   Christians 


THE  SACRAMENTS  IN  ST.  JOHN       277 

must  have  thought,  and  as  we  know  did  think, 
of  the  sacraments  when  they  read,  it  seems  to 
me  indisputable.  Baptism  and  the  Lord's 
Supper,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say,  were  full 
in  the  writer's  view  at  many  points.  He  must 
have  thought  of  baptism  when  he  wrote  in  the 
third  chapter  of  the  gospel  the  words  about 
being  born  of  water  and  spirit ;  he  must  have 
thought  of  the  Supper  as  he  wrote  in  the  sixth 
about  eating  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  and 
drinking  His  blood.  I  cannot  doubt  that  he 
thought  of  both  when  he  told  in  xix.  34  of 
the  blood  and  water  that  issued  from  the 
pierced  side  of  Jesus,  and  again  in  the  epistle 
(v.  6  f)  urged  that  Jesus  Christ  came  through 
water  and  blood,  adding,  with  unambiguous  em- 
phasis, not  in  the  water  only,  but  in  the  water 
and  in  the  blood.  The  water  and  the  blood 
were  always  present  in  the  church  in  the  form 
of  the  sacraments,  and  the  evangelist  uses  the 
sacraments  here  as  witnesses  to  the  historical 
reality  of  the  life  and  experiences  of  Jesus. 
Christian  baptism  answers  to  His  baptism  ;  the 
Christian  feast  in  which  faith  partakes  of  His 
body  and  blood  is  a  perpetual  testimony  to 
His  passion.  It  is  in  this  last  that  St.  John  is 
peculiarly  interested  as  he  writes  the  epistle. 
There  were  teachers  abroad,  of  whom  Cerinthus 
is  a  type,  who  preached  a  Christ  that  had 
come  in  the  water  only,  not  in  the  blood.    The 


278  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

redeeming  love  and  power  of  God,  they  held,  had 
descended  on  Jesus  at  His  baptism,  and  been 
with  Him  in  His  ministry  of  teaching  and  heal- 
ing :  there  is  a  divine  reality  in  this,  therefore, 
on  which  we  can  depend.  But  they  had  with- 
drawn from  Him  before  the  Passion :  there  is 
therefore  no  corresponding  divine  reality  there. 
It  is  against  such  a  view  that  the  apostle 
makes  the  elaborate  and  emphatic  protest  of 
V.  6  f. :  'not  in  the  water  only,  but  in  the  water 
and  in  the  blood.'  To  deny  the  divine  reality 
and  saving  significance  of  the  Passion  was  to 
rob  the  most  sacred  rite  of  the  Christian  religion 
at  once  of  its  basis  and  its  import ;  it  was  to 
abolish  the  Lord's  Supper.  The  apostle  appeals 
to  the  Lord's  Supper  against  such  a  view.  A 
Christ  who  did  not  come  by  blood — a  Christ 
whose  flesh  was  not  the  true  meat  and  His 
blood  the  true  drink,  as  the  celebration  of  the 
Supper  and  the  liturgical  language  used  at  it 
implied — a  Christ  who  did  not  by  His  death 
bring  life  to  men — was  not  the  Christ  known 
to  the  faith  and  acknowledged  in  the  worship 
of  the  church.  The  sacraments,  but  especially 
the  sacrament  of  the  Supper,  are  the  strong- 
hold of  the  New  Testament  doctrine  concerning 
the  death  of  Christ. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  this.  While  the 
apostle  sees  in  the  sacraments  a  testimony  to 
the    historicity   of    the    baptism    and    death    of 


THE  SPIRIT  IN  ST.  JOHN  279 

Christ,  and  to  the  perpetual  presence  in  the 
church  of  the  saving  power  of  the  Lord's 
Passion,  and  while  he  insists  upon  their  histor- 
icity as  against  those  who  denied  that  Jesus 
Christ  had  come  in  flesh,  and  who  made  the 
life  on  earth,  and  especially  the  death,  phan- 
tasmal, so  far  as  a  revelation  of  God  was  con- 
cerned, he  protests  on  the  other  hand  against 
those  who  would  materialise  the  history.  He 
checks  them  at  every  point  by  introducing  and 
emphasising  the  Spirit.  Thus  in  the  gospel, 
chap,  iii.,  he  speaks  once  of  being  born  of 
water  and  spirit,  but  from  that  point  onward 
the  water  is  ignored :  we  hear  of  the  Spirit 
alone ;  of  its  breathing  where  it  will,  of  being 
born  of  the  Spirit,  of  every  one  who  is  so  born. 
So  also  in  the  sixth  chapter,  after  using  the 
strongest  language  about  eating  the  flesh  and 
drinking  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  Man — language 
in  which  enigmatic  defiance  to  antipathetic 
minds  is  carried  to  the  furthest  point — he  pre- 
cludes all  possibility  of  religious  materialism 
by  the  words :  *  It  is  the  Spirit  which  gives 
life ;  the  flesh  is  of  no  use  for  this ;  the  words 
that  I  have  spoken  to  you  are  spirit  and  are 
life'  (vi.  63).  Words  and  speech  address  man 
on  the  spiritual  side  of  his  nature,  and  it  is  on 
this  side  that  everything  included  in  Christ — 
•he  that  eateth  Me^  He  says — finds  access  to 
us.      And   finally,   in   the   epistle,  after  laying 


28o  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

the  stress  we  have  seen  on  the  water  and  the 
blood,  he  concludes :  '  And  the  Spirit  is  that 
which  beareth  witness,  for  the  Spirit  is  the 
truth.  For  three  are  they  that  bear  witness, 
the  Spirit  and  the  water  and  the  blood,  and 
the  three  agree  in  one.'  In  every  case  the 
historical  is  asserted,  but  care  is  taken  that  it 
shall  not  be  materialised :  a  primacy  is  given 
to  the  spiritual.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is 
no  such  spiritualising  as  would  leave  to  the 
historical  merely  a  position  of  vanishing  or 
relative  importance.  There  is  no  sublimation 
of  Christianity  into  'ethical'  or  'spiritual  prin- 
ciples,* or  into  'eternal  facts,'  which  absolve  us 
from  all  obligation  to  a  Saviour  who  came  in 
blood.  Except  through  the  historical,  there  is 
no  Christianity  at  all,  but  neither  is  there  any 
Christianity  till  the  historical  has  been  spiritually 
comprehended. 

This  is  closely  connected  with  our  subject. 
Christianity  is  as  real  as  the  blood  of  Christ : 
it  is  as  real  as  the  agony  in  the  garden  and  the 
death  on  the  Cross.  It  is  not  less  real  than 
this,  nor  more  real ;  it  has  no  reality  whatever 
which  is  separable  from  these  historical  things. 
Yet  it  is  not  in  their  mere  externality,  as  events 
in  past  time,  that  they  establish  Christianity  or 
save  men  from  their  sins.  It  is  as  their  spiritual 
meaning  is  recognised,  and  makes  a  spiritual 
appeal  to  men,  and  awakes  a  spiritual  response. 


HISTORICAL  AND  SPIRITUAL         a8i 

It  is  when  that  awful  experience  of  Jesus  is  re- 
vealed as  a  propitiation  of  sins,  an  assumption 
of  our  responsibilities  by  one  who  does  right 
by  the  eternal  law  which  we  have  wronged, 
and  does  it  at  this  tremendous  cost  for  us ;  it 
is  then  that  the  soul  of  man  is  reached  by  the 
divine  love,  and  through  penitence  and  faith 
drawn  away  from  evil,  and  born  again  of  God. 
It  is  then  that  the  blood  of  Jesus,  God's  Son, 
cleanses  from  all  sin.  It  is  then  that  in  His 
death  the  Son  of  Man  is  glorified,  and  God  is 
glorified  in  Him. 


282  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 


CHAPTER   VI 

ITS  IMPORTANCE  IN   PREACHING  AND  IN 
THEOLOGY 

If  the  series  of  studies  which  we  have  now 
completed  has  reproduced  with  any  adequacy 
or  accuracy  the  mind  of  the  New  Testament 
writers,  certain  conclusions  of  importance  may 
fairly  be  deduced  from  it.  One  is  that  there 
really  is  such  a  thing  as  the  New  Testament. 
There  is,  as  we  were  disposed  to  assume,  a  real 
and  substantial  unity  of  thought  in  the  books 
which  we  call  by  that  name.  They  were  not 
written  with  a  view  to  incorporation  in  a  canon ; 
to  repeat  the  paradox  referred  to  in  the  intro- 
duction, New  Testament  theology  is  the  theology 
of  the  Church  at  a  time  when  as  yet  it  had  no 
New  Testament.  But  the  New  Testament  books 
have  a  unity,  nevertheless,  which  is  not  external 
or  imposed,  nor  due  to  the  accident  of  their 
being  approximately  contemporary,  but  which 
is  inward,  essential,  and  spiritual,  and  which 
qualifies  them  to  be  canonical.  Another  con- 
clusion to  which  we  are  led  is  that  the  death  of 


THE  UNITY  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT    283 

Christ  is  the  central  thing  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  in  the  Christian  religion  as  the  New 
Testament  understands  it.  And  when  we  say 
the  death  of  Christ,  we  include,  of  course,  the 
significance  which  the  New  Testament  ascribes 
to  it.  Apart  from  that  significance  the  death  of 
Christ  has  no  more  right  to  a  place  in  religion 
than  the  death  of  the  penitent  or  the  impenitent 
thief  The  Cross  and  the  word  of  the  Cross — the 
Cross  and  the  rationale  of  it  in  relation  to  the  love 
of  God  and  the  sin  of  Man — are  for  religion  one 
thing.  This  being  so,  it  is  apparent  that  both  for 
the  propagation  and  for  the  scientific  construction 
of  the  Christian  religion  the  death  of  Christ  is  of 
supreme  importance.  Not  that  I  should  draw 
too  abstract  a  distinction.  The  propagation  of 
Christianity  and  its  interpretation  by  intelli- 
gence— in  other  words,  preaching  and  theology 
— should  never  be  divorced.  At  the  vital  point 
they  coincide.  The  simplest  truth  of  the  gospel 
and  the  profoundest  truth  of  theology  must  be 
put  in  the  same  words — He  bore  our  sins.  If 
our  gospel  does  not  inspire  thought,  and  if  our 
theology  does  not  inspire  preaching,  there  is  no 
Christianity  in  cither.  Yet  vitally  related  as 
they  are,  there  is  a  sufficiently  clear  distinction 
between  them,  and  in  considering  some  conse- 
quences, for  preaching  and  theology,  of  New 
Testament  teaching  on  Christ's  death,  it  will  be 
convenient  to  take  preaching  first. 


284  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

It  is  an  immediate  inference,  then,  from  all 
that  we  have  seen  in  the  New  Testament,  that 
where  there  is  no  Atonement  there  is  no  gospel. 
To  preach  the  love  of  God  out  of  relation  to  the 
death  of  Christ — or  to  preach  the  love  of  God 
in  the  death  of  Christ,  but  without  being  able  to 
relate  it  to  sin — or  to  preach  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  as  the  free  gift  of  God's  love,  while  the 
death  of  Christ  has  no  special  significance  as- 
signed to  it — is  not,  if  the  New  Testament  is  the 
rule  and  standard  of  Christianity,  to  preach  the 
gospel  at  all.  Many  ministers  have  suffered 
from  the  charge  of  not  preaching  the  gospel, 
and  have  resented  it  as  an  injustice.  In  any 
given  case  it  may  quite  well  have  been  so. 
There  are  those  who  are  unable  to  separate  form 
from  substance  in  thinking,  and  who  are  only 
too  ready  to  believe  that  if  the  familiar  form  in 
which  the  truth  has  been  expressed  is  varied, 
the  substance  is  being  injured  or  dissipated. 
But  it  is  not  saying  a  hard  or  unjust  thing  to 
say  that  in  some  cases  the  charge  may  not  be 
groundless.  It  may  be  made  not  merely  by  the 
unintelligent,  who  fail  lo  distinguish  form  from 
substance,  but  by  the  simple  Christian  spirit 
which  has  the  anointing  from  the  Holy  One,  and 
knows  instinctively  whether  that  by  which  it 
lives  is  present  in  the  message  it  hears  or  not. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  preaching  in  which  the 
death  of  Christ  has  no  place  corresponding  to 


NO  GOSPEL  WITHOUT  ATONEMENT    285 

that  which  it  has  in  the  New  Testament.  There 
is  preaching  in  which  the  New  Testament  inter- 
pretation of  Christ's  death  is  ignored,  or  carped 
at,  or  exploded.  We  do  not  need  to  argue  that 
no  man  can  preach  the  gospel  until  he  has 
absorbed  into  his  mind  and  heart  the  whole 
significance  of  Christ's  death  as  the  New  Testa- 
ment reveals  it ;  in  that  case,  who  could  preach 
at  all?  But  it  is  not  unjust  to  say  that  no  man 
will  so  preach  as  to  leave  the  impression  that 
he  has  the  Word  of  God  behind  him  if  he  is 
inwardly  at  war  with  the  idea  of  atonement, 
constantly  engaged  in  minimising  it,  maintaining 
an  attitude  of  reserve,  or  even  of  self-defence,  in 
relation  to  it.  We  may  take  it  or  leave  it,  but 
it  is  idle  to  attempt  to  propagate  the  Christian 
religion  on  the  basis  and  with  the  authority  of 
the  New  Testament,  unless  we  have  welcomed 
it  with  our  whole  heart 

It  is  proper  to  remember  in  this  connection 
that  very  often  it  is  the  simplest  expressions, 
and  those  most  open  to  abstract  criticism,  in 
which  the  profoundest  truth  is  most  tellingly 
expressed  and  most  really  apprehended ;  and 
that  when  this  is  the  case,  if  we  are  compelled 
to  criticise,  we  should  be  careful  that  we  do  not 
discredit  the  essential  truth  as  well  as  the  in- 
adequate form.  It  is  easy,  for  instance,  to  criti- 
cise the  insufficiency  of  any  commercial  figure, 
like  that  of  '  debt,'  to  exhibit  the  personal  and 


286  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

spiritual  relations  subsisting  between  man  and 
God ;  yet  Christ  used  this  figure  habitually 
and  the  whole  impression  which  it  makes  upon 
the  conscience  is  sound.  The  words  of  the 
revival  hymn,  'Jesus  paid  it  all,  All  to  Him  I 
owe,'  have  the  root  of  the  matter  in  them  ;  and, 
however  inadequate  they  may  be  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  Christ's  work  and  of  Christian 
experience  as  a  whole,  they  are  infinitely  truer 
than  the  most  balanced,  considerate,  or  subtle 
statement  which  denies  them.  Hence,  whatever 
the  motive  which  prompts  criticism  of  such  forms, 
we  should  be  sensitive  to  the  meaning  they  bear. 
Even  if  we  think  they  are  morally  inadequate, 
and  leave  the  new  life  unprovided  for,  we  should 
remember  that  in  the  New  Testament  the  new 
life  is  the  immediate  response  to  the  very  truth 
which  such  forms  convey.  The  new  life  springs 
out  of  the  sense  of  debt  to  Christ.  The  re- 
generating power  of  forgiveness  depends  upon 
its  cost :  it  is  the  knowledge  that  we  have  been 
bought  with  a  price  which  makes  us  cease  to  be 
our  own,  and  live  for  Him  who  so  dearly  bought 
us.  And  we  should  remember  also  that  it  is 
not  always  intellectual  sensitiveness,  nor  care  for 
the  moral  interests  involved,  wliich  sets  the  mind 
to  criticise  statements  of  the  Atonement.  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  pride,  the  last  form  of  which 
is  unwillingness  to  become  debtor  even  to  Christ 
for  forgiveness  of  sins ;  and  it  is  conceivable  that 


COMPLETENESS  OF  THE  ATONEMENT     287 

in  any  given  case  it  may  be  this  which  makes 
the  words  of  the  hymn  stick  in  our  throats.  In 
any  case,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  sense 
of  debt  to  Christ  is  the  most  profound  and 
pervasive  of  all  emotions  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  that  only  a  gospel  which  evokes  this,  as 
the  gospel  of  Atonement  does,  is  true  to  the 
primitive  and  normal  Christian  type. 

Not  only  must  Atonement  by  the  death  of 
Christ  be  preached  if  we  would  preach  the  New 
Testament  gospel,  but  the  characteristics  of 
the  Atonement  must  be  clearly  reflected  in  the 
preaching  if  justice  is  to  be  done  to  the  gospel. 
As  the  finished  work  of  Christ  the  Atonement 
is  complete,  and  the  perfection  which  belongs 
to  it  belongs  also  to  the  new  relation  to  God 
into  which  we  enter  when  the  Atonement  is 
appropriated  by  faith.  There  is  no  condemna- 
tion to  them  that  are  in  Christ  Jesus.  Their 
relation  to  God  is  not  determined  now  in  the  very 
least  by  sin  or  law,  it  is  determined  by  Christ 
the  propitiation  and  by  faith.  The  position  of 
the  believer  is  not  that  of  one  trembling  at  the 
judgment  seat,  or  of  one  for  whom  everything 
remains  somehow  in  a  condition  of  suspense ;  it 
is  that  of  one  who  has  the  assurance  of  a  Divine 
love  which  has  gone  deeper  than  all  his  sins,  and 
has  taken  on  itself  the  responsibility  of  them, 
and  the  responsibility  of  delivering  him  from 
them.     A    relation    to   God    in   which   sin   has 


388  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

nothing  to  say,  but  which  is  summed  up  in 
Christ  and  His  perfect  Atonement  for  sin — in 
John  Wesley's  words,  full  salvation  now — is  the 
burden  of  the  gospel.  If  it  is  not  easy  to  believe 
this  or  to  preach  it,  it  is  because,  as  the  heavens 
are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  God's  thoughts 
higher  than  our  thoughts,  and  His  ways  than 
our  ways.  In  the  New  Testament  itself  there 
is  always  something  startling,  something  almost 
incredible,  which  breaks  again  and  again  on  the 
soul  with  a  sense  of  wonder,  in  the  experience 
of  reconciliation  through  the  death  of  Christ. 
But  it  is  this  great  gospel  which  is  the  gospel 
to  win  souls — this  message  of  a  sin-bearing,  sin- 
expiating  love,  which  pleads  for  acceptance,  which 
takes  the  whole  responsibility  of  the  sinner  un- 
conditionally, with  no  preliminaries,  if  only  he 
abandon  himself  to  it.  Only  the  preaching  of 
full  salvation  now,  as  Wesley  tells  us — and  who 
knew  better  from  experience  than  he? — has  any 
promise  in  it  of  revival. 

Further,  preaching  which  would  do  justice 
to  the  Atonement  must  hold  out  in  the  gospel 
an  assurance  corresponding  to  the  certainty  of 
Christ's  death  and  to  the  sin  -  bearing  love 
demonstrated  in  it.  Nothing  is  more  character- 
istic of  churches  than  their  attitude  to  assurance, 
and  the  place  they  give  it  in  their  preaching  and 
in  their  systems  of  doctrine.  Speaking  broadly, 
we  may  say  that  in   the  Romish  church  it  is 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  ASSURANCE     289 

regarded  as  essentially  akin  to  presumption ;  in 
the  Protestant  churches  it  is  a  privilege  or  a 
duty;  but  in  the  New  Testament  religion  it  is 
simply  a  fact.  This  explains  the  joy  which,  side 
by  side  with  the  sense  of  infinite  obligation,  is  the 
characteristic  note  of  apostolic  Christianity.  The 
great  invincible  certainty  of  the  reconciling  love 
of  God,  which  even  when  we  were  enemies  made 
peace  for  us,  this  underlies  all  things,  embraces 
all  things,  makes  all  things  work  together  for 
good  to  those  who  love  God,  makes  us  more 
than  conquerors  in  all  things;  take  away  the 
certainty  of  it,  and  the  New  Testament  temper 
expires.  Joy  in  this  certainty  is  not  presump- 
tion ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  joy  in  the  Lord,  and 
such  joy  is  the  Christian's  strength.  It  is  the 
impulse  and  the  hope  of  sanctification ;  and  to 
deprecate  it,  and  the  assurance  from  which  it 
springs,  is  no  true  evangelical  humility,  but  a 
failure  to  believe  in  the  infinite  goodness  of  God 
who  in  Christ  removes  our  sins  from  us  as  far 
as  the  east  is  from  the  west,  and  plants  our  life 
in  His  eternal  reconciling  love.  The  New  Testa- 
ment spirit  is  not  meant  for  our  despair,  but  for 
our  inspiration  ;  that  assurance  of  sin-bearing 
love,  that  sanctifying  strength  and  gladness,  are 
the  type  of  genuine  Christian  life. 

We  can  understand  and  appreciate  the  motive 
which,  both  in  the  Romish  and  in  the  Protestant 
churches,  has  fostered  in  relation  to  assurance  a 

T 


290  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

temper  which  is  not  that  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  which  does  not  answer  to  the  completeness 
and  certainty  of  Christ's  finished  work.  The 
motive  is  in  both  cases  a  desire  to  safeguard 
moral  interests  and  to  put  a  check  upon  self- 
deception.  The  Romish  church  safeguards  moral 
interests  by  making  justification  and  the  new 
life  identical :  men  are  justified  as,  and  only 
in  proportion  as,  they  are  actually  and  morally 
renewed.  The  objection  to  this  method  is  that 
the  security  is  too  good.  An  absolute  justifica- 
tion is  needed  to  give  the  sinner  a  start.  He 
must  have  the  certainty  of  'no  condemnation,' 
of  being,  without  reserve  or  drawback,  right  with 
God  through  God's  gracious  act  in  Christ,  before 
he  can  begin  to  live  the  new  life.  As  Chalmers 
put  it  with  magnificent  simplicity, 'What  could 
I  do  if  God  did  not  justify  the  ungodly}*  It  is 
not  by  denying  the  gospel  outright,  from  the 
very  beginning,  that  we  are  to  guard  against  the 
possible  abuse  of  it.  In  the  Protestant  churches, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  attempt  to  check  pre- 
sumption and  to  safeguard  moral  interests  was 
usually  made  by  laying  stress  on  the  proper  kind 
of  faith.  The  German  Pietists,  in  opposition  to 
a  dead  orthodoxy,  in  which  faith  had  come  to 
mean  no  more  than  the  formal  recognition  of 
sound  doctrine,  spoke  with  emphasis  of  penitent 
faith,  living  faith,  true  faith,  obedient  faith,  and 
so  on.     It  is  somewhat  against  qualifications  like 


THE  ATONEMENT  AND  ASSURANCE     291 

these  that  they  are  foreign  to  the  New  Testament. 
What  they  come  to  in  practice  is  this  :  Before 
the  mercy  of  God  in  Christ  the  propitiation  can 
be  available  for  you,  O  sinful  man,  you  must  have 
a  sufficient  depth  of  penitence,  a  sufficiently 
earnest  desire  for  reconciliation  and  holiness, 
a  sufficient  moral  sincerity;  otherwise  grace 
would  only  minister  to  sin.  But  such  qualifica- 
tions do  infringe  upon  the  graciousness  of  the 
gospel — I  mean  on  its  absolute  freeness — as 
something  to  be  explained  out  of  the  love 
of  God  and  the  necessity,  not  the  merits,  of 
men.  Christ  did  not  die  for  those  who  were 
sufficiently  penitent.  He  is  the  propitiation  for 
the  whole  world,  and  He  bore  the  sins  of  all 
that  all  might  believe  and  receive  through  Him 
repentance  and  remission.  To  try  to  take  some 
preliminary  security  for  the  sinner's  future 
morality  before  you  make  the  gospel  available 
for  him  is  not  only  to  strike  at  the  root  of 
assurance,  it  is  to  pay  a  very  poor  tribute  to 
the  power  of  the  gospel.  The  truth  is,  morality 
is  best  guaranteed  by  Christ,  and  not  by  any 
precautions  we  can  take  before  Christ  gets  a 
chance,  or  by  any  virtue  that  is  in  faith  except 
as  it  unites  the  soul  to  Him.  Now  the  Christ 
who  is  the  object  of  faith  is  the  Christ  whose 
death  is  the  Atonement,  and  the  faith  which 
takes  hold  of  Christ  as  He  is  held  out  in  the 
gospel  conducts,  if  we  may  use  such  a  figure, 


292  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

the  virtue  of  the  Atonement  into  the  heart.  The 
mercy  of  God  which  we  welcome  in  it,  and 
welcome  as  the  first  and  last  of  spiritual  realities 
with  invincible  assurance,  is  a  mercy  which  has 
deep  in  the  heart  of  it  God's  judgment  upon  sin  ; 
and  such  a  mercy,  absolutely  free  as  it  is,  and 
able  to  evoke  in  sinful  men  a  joy  unspeakable 
and  full  of  glory,  can  never  foster  either  im- 
morality or  presumption.  But  when  its  certainty, 
completeness,  and  freeness  are  so  qualified  or 
disguised  that  assurance  becomes  suspect  and 
joy  is  quenched,  the  Christian  religion  has  ceased 
to  he} 

There  is  one  other  characteristic  of  the  Atone- 
ment which  ought  to  be  reflected  in  gospel 
preaching  as  determined  by  it,  and  which  may 
for  want  of  a  better  word  be  described  as  its 

^  I  venture  to  quote  two  sentences  in  illustration  of  this  para- 
praph.  Dr.  Dale  {Li/a,  p.  666),  who  read  Pusey's  life  '  with  a 
deep  impression  of  the  nobleness  and  massiveness  of  his  nature, 
and  feeling  more  than  ever  that  the  power  of  God  was  with  him,' 
had  nevertheless  to  add  :  '  The  absence  of  joy  in  his  religious  life 
was  only  the  inevitable  effect  of  his  conception  of  God's  method 
of  saving  men ;  in  parting  with  the  Lutheran  truth  concerning 
justification  (it  might  equally  well  be  said  with  the  New  Testament 
truth  of  Christ's  finished  work)  he  parted  with  the  springs  of 
gladness.'  It  is  in  the  same  line  that  Dr.  Fairbairn  has  said  of 
Pusey,  that  the  sense  of  sin  was  '  more  a  matter  for  himself  to 
bear  than  for  grace  to  remove '  {Philosophy  of  tht  Christian 
Religion,  p.  333).  The  other  sentence  is  from  Clialmers,  a  great 
nature  who  had  an  ori^jinal  experience  of  the  New  Testament 
religion  and  often  found  original  utterance  for  it :  '  Regaled  my- 
self with  the  solidity  of  the  objective  pari  of  religion,  and  long  to 
enter  a  field  of  enlargement  in  preaching  on  the  essential  truths  of 
the  gospel'  {Life,  by  llunna,  vol.  ii.  p.  417). 


FINALITY  OF  THE  ATONEMENT        293 

finality.  Christ  died  for  sins  once  for  all,  and  the 
man  who  believes  in  Christ  and  in  His  death  has 
his  relation  to  God  once  for  all  determined  not 
by  sin  but  by  the  Atonement.  The  sin  for  which 
a  Christian  has  daily  to  seek  forgiveness  is  not 
sin  which  annuls  his  acceptance  with  God,  and 
casts  him  back  into  the  position  of  one  who  has 
never  had  the  assurance  of  the  pardoning  mercy 
of  God  in  Christ ;  on  the  contrary,  that  assurance 
ought  to  be  the  permanent  element  in  his  life. 
The  forgiveness  of  sins  has  to  be  received  again 
and  again  as  sin  emerges  into  act ;  but  when 
the  soul  closes  with  Christ  the  propitiation,  the 
assurance  of  God's  love  is  laid  at  the  foundation 
of  its  being  once  for  all.  It  is  not  to  isolated 
acts  it  refers,  but  to  the  personality  ;  not  to  sins, 
but  to  the  sinner ;  not  to  the  past  only,  in  which 
wrong  has  been  done,  but  to  time  and  eternity. 
There  will  inevitably  be  in  the  Christian  life 
experiences  of  sinning  and  being  forgiven,  of 
falling  and  being  restored.  But  the  grace  which 
forgives  and  restores  is  not  some  new  thing,  nor 
is  it  conditioned  in  some  new  way.  It  is  not 
dependent  upon  penitence,  or  works,  or  merit 
of  ours;  it  is  the  same  absolutely  free  grace 
which  meets  us  at  the  Cross.  From  first  to 
last,  it  is  the  blood  of  Jesus,  God's  Son,  which 
cleanses  from  sin.  The  daily  pardon,  the  daily 
cleansing,  are  but  the  daily  virtue  of  that  one 
all-embracing  act  of  mercy  in  which,  while  we 


294  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

were  yet  sinners,  we  were  reconciled  to  God  by 
the  death  of  His  Son. 

To  say  that  there  is  no  gospel  without  Atone- 
ment, and  that  the  characteristics  of  the  Atone- 
ment must  be  impressed  upon  Christian  preaching 
and  reflected  in  the  completeness,  assurance,  and 
joy  of  the  Christian  life  which  is  the  response 
to  it,  does  not  mean  that  the  preacher  is  always 
to  be  expressly  and  formally  engaged  with  the 
death  of  Christ,  nor  does  it  determine  in  what 
way  that  death  in  its  redeeming  significance  is 
to  be  presented  to  men.  It  is  impossible  to 
forget  the  example  of  our  Lord,  though  we  are 
bound  to  remember  that  what  was  natural  and 
inevitable  before  the  Passion  and  the  Resurrec- 
tion may  not  be  either  wise  or  natural  now. 
But  looking  to  the  gospels,  we  cannot  but  see 
that  our  Lord  allowed  His  disciples  every  oppor- 
tunity to  become  acquainted  with  Him,  and  to 
grow  into  confidence  in  Him,  before  He  began 
to  teach  them  about  His  death.  He  allowed 
them  to  catch  the  impression  of  His  Personality 
before  He  initiated  them  into  the  mystery  of  His 
Passion.  As  for  outsiders.  He  seems  not  to  have 
spoken  to  them  on  the  subject  at  all.  Yet  it 
would  be  a  mistake,  as  we  have  seen,  to  suppose 
that  the  death  of  Jesus  was  not  present — in  His 
mind  and  in  His  life — even  where  nothing  was 
said  of  it.  The  more  we  study  the  gospels,  and 
the  more  thoroughly  we  appreciate  such  incidents 


OUR  LORD'S  METHOD  295 

as  the  Baptism,  the  Temptation,  and  the  Trans- 
figuration, with  the  heavenly  voices  attendant 
on  them-  not  to  mention  the  occasions  on  which 
His  death  rises  even  in  early  days  to  the  surface 
of  our  Lord's  mind — the  more  we  shall  be 
convinced  that  the  sense  and  the  power  of  it 
pervade  everything  we  know  of  Him.  He  lived 
in  the  same  spirit  in  which  He  died,  and  in  a 
true  sense  we  are  in  contact  with  the  Passion 
and  the  Atonement  whenever  we  are  in  contact 
with  the  soul  of  Jesus.  To  preach  the  gospels, 
therefore,  it  may  be  said,  is  to  preach  the  gospel. 
On  the  other  hand  we  must  remember,  and 
allow  the  remembrance  its  full  weight  as  a  direc- 
tory for  teaching  and  preaching,  that  a  time 
came  when  Jesus  set  Himself  deliberately,  sys- 
tematically, and  with  unwearied  reiteration  to 
bring  home  to  His  disciples  the  meaning  of 
His  death.  Everything  conspires  to  make  us 
see  how  deeply  it  moved  Him,  and  how  deeply 
He  was  concerned  to  have  it  apprehended  by 
the  disciples  as  what  it  was.  The  very  names 
by  which  He  names  it — My  baptism,  My  cup ; 
the  profound  virtue  He  ascribes  to  it  as  a 
ransom,  and  as  the  basis  of  a  new  covenant 
between  God  and  man  ;  the  striking  ordinances 
of  baptism  and  the  supper  which  He  associated 
with  it,  and  which  in  spite  of  intelligible  yet 
misconceived  protests  will  guard  its  meaning 
while  the  world  stands ;  all  these  separately,  and 


396  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

still  more  in  combination,  warn  us  that  whatever 
method  may  be  prescribed  in  any  given  case 
by  pedagogic  considerations,  it  must  not  be  one 
which  leaves  it  optional  to  us  to  give  the  death 
of  Christ  a  place  in  our  gospel  or  not,  as  we 
please.  It  is  as  certain  as  anything  can  be  that 
He  meant  us  to  be  His  debtors  and  to  feel  that 
we  are  so.  He  meant  to  represent  Himself  as 
the  mediator  between  God  and  sinners,  and  to 
evoke  in  sinners  an  infinite  sense  of  obligation 
to  Himself  as  they  realised  that  they  had  peace 
with  God.  And  it  always  comes  to  this  in  the 
long-run.  Men  may  come  into  contact  with 
Christ  at  different  places;  they  may  approach  Him 
from  all  quarters  of  the  compass,  under  various 
impulses,  yielding  to  a  charm  and  constraint  in 
Him  as  manifold  as  the  beatitudes  or  as  the 
gracious  words  and  deeds  of  the  gospel.  But 
if  they  are  in  dead  earnest  as  He  is,  they  will 
come  sooner  or  later  to  the  strait  gate ;  and  the 
ultimate  form  the  strait  gate  assumes — for  it  is 
a  gate  that  goes  on  straitening  till  the  demand 
for  death  is  made  as  the  price  of  life — is  that  to 
which  Jesus  leads  up  His  disciples  in  His  last 
lessons :  are  you  willing  to  humble  yourselves 
so  as  to  owe  to  Me,  and  to  My  death  for  you, 
the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  the  life  which  is  life 
indeed  ?  There  is  a  straight  line  from  every 
point  in  the  circumference  of  a  circle  to  the 
centre,  and  when  we  get  to  the  quick  of  almost 


KIERKEGAARD'S  VIEW  297 

anything  in  the  relations  of  men  to  Jesus,  it  leads 
with  wonderful  directness  to  this  decisive  point. 

A  striking  passage  from  Kierkegaard's  diary 
may  help  to  reconcile  in  our  minds  what  seem 
to  be  conflicting  assertions :  the  one,  that  there 
is  no  preaching  of  the  gospel  unless  the  Atone- 
ment is  preached  ;  the  other,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  has  a  superficial  support  in  the  life  and 
practice  of  Jesus,  that  the  Atonement  is  the  last 
thing  in  Christ  to  which  the  mind  can  be  opened 
or  reconciled.  In  general,  Kierkegaard  says,* 
the  relation  between  God  and  man  is  represented 
thus :  Christ  leads  us  to  God ;  man  requires  a 
mediator  in  order  to  have  access  to  the  Father. 
But  this,  he  argues,  is  not  how  the  New  Testa- 
ment puts  it  Nor  can  this  by  any  possibility 
be  the  true  way  of  putting  it  if,  as  he  further 
argues,  our  relation  to  God  is  to  become  con- 
tinually higher  and  more  real ;  for  it  can  only 
become  such  through  a  continual  experience  on 
our  part  of  being  more  deeply  humbled  in  God's 
presence.  But  there  is  no  sense  of  being  deeply 
humbled  in  the  first  stages  of  our  religion.  We 
begin,  in  short,  with  the  Father,  quite  easily  and 
naturally,  and  without  any  mediator.  This  and 
nothing  else  is  the  childlike  way  of  beginning. 
For  the  child  nothing  is  too  high ;   he  says  Du 

'  Aus  den  Tiefen  der  Reflexion :  aus  Sbren  KierVegaards 
Tagebiichern  1833-1855:  aus  dem  Danischen  tibersetzt  tob 
F.  Venator. 


298  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

to  the  Kaiser  just  as  he  does  to  his  nurse,  and 
finds  it  perfectly  intelh'gible  and  proper  that  God 
should  be  his  Father.  It  would  have  no  meaning 
to  him  if  he  heard  a  voice  which  said, '  No  man 
Cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  Me.'  But  as 
soon  as  man  has  attained  to  a  certain  degree 
of  maturity,  God's  greatness  or  sublimity,  moral 
as  well  as  metaphysical,  becomes  so  overwhelm- 
ing to  him  that  it  is  no  longer  natural  or  easy 
to  call  him  Father.  There  is  something  pre- 
sumptuous in  it,  or  something  quite  unreal.  Now 
this  sense  of  the  relation  between  himself  and 
God,  which  grows  upon  man  as  his  moral  con- 
sciousness matures,  is  true,  and  there  is  that 
which  answers  to  it  in  the  mind  of  God  Himself. 
Hence  at  this  stage  God  points  us  to  His  Son, 
the  Mediator.  *  It  is  written  in  the  prophets,' 
says  Jesus  (John  vi.  45),  '  And  they  shall  all  be 
taught  of  God.  Every  one  who  has  heard  from 
the  Father  and  has  learned  comes  to  Me.'  This 
is  the  remedy  for  the  presumption  and  unreality 
just  referred  to.  It  is  as  though  God  said : 
You  must  not  assert  or  claim  sonship  in  your 
own  right ;  you  must  not  take  Fatherhood  for 
granted ;  but  through  the  Mediator  I  can  be 
your  Father.  This,  however,  is  not  all.  The 
Mediator  also,  like  the  Father  at  first,  is  apt 
to  be  taken  for  granted  with  the  assurance  of 
youth,  if  not  of  childhood.  For  the  Mediator 
is  at  first  conceived  as  exnmple  ;  it  is  in  imita- 
tion  of   Him,   in    likeness  to  Him — to   use  the 


KIERKEGAARD'S  VIEW  299 

phrase  which  is  most  popular  in  our  own  day, 
and  is  charged  to  the  full  with  this  unreflecting 
youthful  assurance,  it  is  in  self-identifTcation  with 
Him — that  we  must  realise  the  Fatherhood  of 
God.  There  is  an  amiable  youthfulness,  says 
Kierkegaard,  the  token  of  which  is  that  it  finds 
nothing  too  high  for  it.  It  seems  to  it  quite 
natural  and  becoming  that  it  should  have  such 
an  infinitely  lofty  example  as  Jesus,  the  Son  of 
God ;  among  its  amiable  illusions  is  to  be 
counted  a  pious  conviction  that  it  is  within  its 
power  to  attain  to  this  example ;  it  takes  for 
granted  that  the  example  and  he  who  is  striving 
to  follow  it  are  in  such  a  sense  t)f  one  kind  that 
nothing  can  really  come  between  them.  But 
once  more,  as  the  moral  consciousness  matures, 
a'  change  comes.  The  example  towers  to  such 
a  height  before  man's  eyes — the  sinless  Son  of 
God  is  so  remote  and  inaccessible  in  His  sinless- 
ness  and  sonship — that  man  can  no  longer  think 
of  imitating  it,  or  of  trying  to  do  so,  in  the 
independent  style  of  good  comradeship.  He 
cannot  take  it  for  granted  that  he  can  make 
himself  what  Christ  is:  that  he  can  'identify' 
himself  with  Christ  offhand,  simply  because  he 
wants  to  do  so.  And  Christ,  too,  is  of  this 
opinion;  it  is  another  and  a  more  dependent 
relation,  with  a  deeper  sense  of  obligation  in  it, 
which  He  requires  from  His  followers.  The 
example  has  anoiher  side,  of  which  amiable 
and  aspiring  youth  is  at  first  ignorant:  He  is 


300  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

also  the  Reconciler.  This  it  is  which  brings  us 
to  the  point.  Partly,  Kierkegaard  argues,  there 
is  a  stage  in  life — the  stage  of  amiable  and 
aspiring  youth — which  is  without  the  moral  cate- 
gories necessary  for  appreciating  the  example ; 
it  does  not  see,  feel,  nor  understand  how  Christ 
transcends  all  that  it  is,  and  how  He  must  in 
some  profound  way  be  of  another  as  well  as  of 
the  same  nature ;  partly,  he  thinks,  it  has  an 
illusory  conception  of  its  own  powers,  and  of 
what  it  is  in  it  to  be.  But  whatever  the  reason, 
the  fact  remains ;  experience  reveals  to  one  who 
is  trying  to  imitate  Jesus,  or  to  identify  himself 
with  Him,  that  he  needs  reconciliation  first :  he 
must  become  debtor  to  Jesus  for  this  one  thing 
needful  before  he  can  have  a  sound  start  in 
the  filial  life.  He  must  owe  it  to  Christ  as 
Reconciler,  and  owe  it  from  the  very  beginning, 
if  he  is  ever  to  stand  in  the  relation  of  a  son 
to  the  Father.  He  may  think  at  first  that  he 
can  identify  himself  with  the  Son  of  God  at 
any  point  over  the  whole  area  of  his  life,  but 
he  discovers  experimentally  that  this  is  not  so. 
He  finds  out  in  a  way  surer  than  any  logical 
demonstration  that  Christ  is  in  the  last  resort 
as  inaccessible  to  him  as  the  God  to  whom  he 
would  draw  near  by  imitating  Christ,  and  that 
the  only  hope  he  has  of  getting  to  God  in  this 
way  depends  upon  Christ's  making  Himself  one 
with   him    in    that    responsibility  for  sin  which 


'FIRST  OF  ALL'  301 

separates  him  from  the  Father.  His  one  point 
of  contact  with  Christ,  when  his  whole  situation 
is  seriously  taken,  is  Christ's  character  as  a  pro- 
pitiation for  sin ;  and  sooner  or  later  he  is  driven 
in  upon  that. 

The  type  of  experience  here  described  may 
be  common  enough  in  Christian  lands,  but  what, 
it  may  be  asked,  is  its  relation  to  such  a  practice 
as  St.  Paul  describes  in  i  Cor.  xv.  3  :  *  I  delivered 
unto  you  first  of  all  that  which  I  also  received, 
that  Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the 
Scriptures?'  Is  this  consistent  with  what  has 
just  been  said,  or  with  what  we  have  seen  of  our 
Lord's  method  of  teaching  ?  Is  there  a  rule  in 
it  for  all  evangelistic  preaching? 

St.  Paul's  expression,  h  trpoaroi^,  is  not  quite 
so  pointed  as  'first  of  all.'  It  is  certainly  to 
be  taken,  however,  in  a  temporal  sense  :  among 
the  first  things  the  apostle  transmitted  to  the 
Corinthians  were  the  fundamental  facts  of  the 
Christian  religion,  the  death  and  resurrection  of 
Jesus  in  the  significance  which  belonged  to  them 
'  according  to  the  Scriptures,'  that  is,  in  the  light 
of  the  earlier  revelation.  And  among  these  first 
things  the  death  of  Christ  in  its  relation  to  sin 
had  a  foremost  place.  It  is,  I  think,  a  fair 
inference  from  this  that  in  preaching  the  gospel 
the  main  appeal  is  to  be  made  to  the  conscience, 
and  that  it  cannot  be  made  too  soon,  too  urgently, 
too  desperately,  or  too  hopefully.     It  is  because 


302  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

the  Atonement  is  at  once  the  revelation  of  sin 
and  the  redemption  from  sin,  that  it  must  inspire 
everything  in  preaching  which  is  to  bring  home 
to  the  conscience  either  conviction  of  sin  or 
the  hope  and  assurance  of  deliverance  from  it. 
'Eternity,'  Halyburton  said,  'is  wrapt  up  in 
every  truth  of  religion ' ;  the  Atonement,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say,  is  wrapt  up  in  every 
truth  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  should  be 
sensible  through  every  word  of  the  Christian 
preacher.  In  this  sense  at  least  it  must  be 
delivered  iv  irpdiTOL'i.  We  may  begin  as  wisely 
as  we  please  with  those  who  have  a  prejudice 
against  it,  or  whose  conscience  is  asleep,  or  who 
have  much  to  learn  both  about  Christ  and  about 
themselves  before  they  will  consent  to  look  at 
such  a  gospel,  to  say  nothing  of  abandoning 
themselves  to  it ;  but  if  we  do  not  begin  with 
something  which  is  essentially  related  to  the 
Atonement,  presupposing  it  or  presupposed  by 
it  or  involved  in  it,  something  which  leads  in- 
evitably, though  it  may  be  by  an  indirect  and 
unsuspected  route,  to  the  Lamb  of  God  that 
taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,  we  have  not 
begun  to  the  gospel  at  all.  This  may  seem  a 
hard  saying  to  those  who  have  listened  to  weari- 
ness to  the  repetition  of  orthodox  formulae  on 
this  subject,  and  have  realised  that  even  under 
the  New  Covenant  there  are  conditions  which 
compel  us  to  say,  The  letter  killeth.     But  it  is 


THE  SENSE  OF  SIN  303 

not  because  the  formulae  are  orthodox  that  they 
weary,  it  is  because  they  are  formal ;  the  vital 
interest  of  the  great  realities  which  they  enshrine 
has  slipped  from  an  unbelieving  grasp,  and  left 
the  preacher  with  nothing  to  deliver  but  words. 
A  fresh  realisation  of  the  truth  which  they 
embody  would  bring  new  words  or  put  new  life 
into  the  old ;  and  in  any  case  the  fact  remains 
that  there  is  nothing  which  is  so  urgently  and 
immediately  wanted  by  sinful  men,  nothing  which 
strikes  so  deep  into  the  heart,  which  answers  so 
completely  to  its  need,  and  binds  it  so  irrevocably 
and  with  such  a  sense  of  obligation  to  God,  as 
the  atoning  death  of  Jesus.  Implicit  or  ex- 
plicit, it  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  Christian 
preaching. 

Most  preachers  in  any  sympathy  with  this  line 
of  thought  have  deplored  in  the  present  or  the 
last  generation  the  decay  of  the  sense  of  sin.* 
Now,  the  Atonement  is  addressed  to  the  sense  of 
sin.  It  presupposes  the  bad  conscience.  Where 
there  is  no  such  thing,  it  is  like  a  lever  without 
a  fulcrum ;  great  as  its  power  might  be,  it  is 
actually  powerless,  and  often  provokes  resent- 
ment. The  phenomenon  is  a  curious  one,  and 
though  it  cannot  be  permanent,  it  calls  for 
explanation.  Possibly  the  explanation  is  partly 
to  be  found  in  the  circumstance  that  the  Atone- 

*  For  a  typical  illustration,  see  Dale's  Christian  Doctrine^ 
pp.  251  ft 


304  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

ment  itself  was  once  preached  too  much  as 
though  it  had  relation  only  to  the  past,  and  had 
no  assurance  or  guarantee  in  it  for  man's  future. 
It  contained  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  but  not  the 
new  life.  Where  this  was  the  case  we  can  under- 
stand that  it  ceased  to  be  interesting  to  those 
whose  hearts  were  set  on  holiness.  We  can 
understand  how  Bushnell  could  speak  of  the 
forgiveness  of  sins  as  *  only  a  kind  of  formality, 
or  verbal  discharge,  that  carries  practically  no  dis- 
charge at  all.'  But  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  how 
this  could  be  brought  into  any  kind  of  relation  to 
the  New  Testament.  There,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
forgiveness  of  sins,  and  the  Atonement  which  is  its 
ground,  are  no  formality.  They  are  the  supreme 
miracle  of  revelation,  the  hardest,  most  incredible, 
most  wonderful  work  of  the  God  who  alone  does 
wondrous  things  ;  the  whole  promise  and  potency 
of  the  new  life  arc  to  be  found  in  them  alone. 
The  Atonement,  or  God's  justification  of  the  un- 
godly, which  takes  effect  with  the  acceptance 
of  the  Atonement,  regenerates,  and  there  is  no 
regeneration  besides.  But  while  a  defective 
appreciation  of  the  New  Testament  may  have 
done  something  to  discredit  the  Atonement, 
and  to  make  men  think  of  forgiveness,  and  of 
the  sense  of  sin  which  demands  it,  as  alike 
'formalities'  in  contrast  with  actual  sanctifica- 
tion,  the  deadening  of  conscience  is  probably 
to  be  traced  on  the  whole  to  other  causes.    It 


THE  SENSE  OF  SIN  305 

is  due  in  great  part  to  the  dominance  in  the 
mind  for  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years  of  the 
categories  of  natural  science,  and  especially  of 
a  naturalistic  theory  of  evolution.  All  things 
have  been  'naturalised,'  if  we  may  so  speak; 
the  spiritual  being  no  longer  retains,  in  the 
common  consciousness,  his  irreducible  individu- 
ality ;  he  has  lapsed  to  some  extent  into  the 
vast  continuity  of  the  universe.  Even  to  speak 
of  the  individual  is  to  use  language  which  is 
largely  unreal,  and  with  individuality  individual 
responsibility  has  lost  credit.  It  is  the  race 
which  lives,  and  it  is  the  qualities  and  defects  of 
the  race  which  are  exhibited  in  what  we  call  the 
virtues  and  vices  of  men.  When  we  look  at  the 
lives  of  others,  the  last  thing  we  now  think  of 
is  the  responsibility  which  attaches  to  each  of 
them  for  being  what  he  is ;  and  it  is  apt  to  be  the 
last  thing  also  which  we  think  of  when  we  look 
at  ourselves.  Heredity  and  environment — these 
are  the  dominant  realities  in  our  minds ;  and  so 
inevitable,  so  importunate  is  their  pressure,  that 
what  was  once  known  as  freedom  passes  out  of 
view.  We  are  afraid  to  speak  as  the  Bible  speaks 
about  personal  responsibility — we  are  afraid  to 
say  the  tremendous  things  it  says  about  sin  and 
sinful  men — both  because  we  would  not  be  unjust 
to  others,  and  because  wc  wish  to  be  considerate 
to  ourselves.  For  the  same  reason  we  are  afraid 
to  give  tliat  decisive  importance  to  the  atoning 

U 


3o6  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

death  of  Christ  which  it  carries  in  the  New 
Testament.  But  of  one  thing  we  may  be  cer- 
tain :  sooner  or  later  there  will  be  a  reaction 
against  this  mental  condition.  When  our  sense 
of  the  unity  of  the  race  in  itself,  and  of  its 
unity  with  the  '  nature '  which  is  the  theatre  of 
its  history,  has  done  its  work — when  the  social 
conscience  has  been  quickened — when  the  feeling 
of  corporate  responsibility  has  attained  adequate 
intensity,  so  that  the  duties  of  society  to  the 
individual  shall  be  no  longer  overlooked,  the 
responsibility  of  the  individual  will  come  back 
in  new  strength.  The  naturalistic  view  of  the 
world  cannot  permanently  suppress  the  moral 
one.  Even  while  it  has  seemed  to  threaten  it, 
it  has  been  preparing  for  its  revival  in  a  more 
profound  and  adequate  form.  The  sense  of 
personal  responsibility,  when  it  does  come  back, 
will  be  less  confined,  more  far-reaching  and  mys- 
terious ;  it  will  be  more  than  ever  such  a  sense 
of  responsibility  as  will  make  the  doctrine  of 
a  divine  atonement  for  sin  necessary,  credible, 
and  welcome. 

Meanwhile,  surely,  the  preaching  of  the  Atone- 
ment has  something  to  do  with  producing  the  very 
state  of  mind  on  which  its  reception  depends.  It 
is  the  highest  truth  of  revelation  ;  and  the  highest 
truth  is  like  the  highest  poetry — it  has  to  generate 
the  intellectual  and  moral  atmosphere  in  which 
alone  it  can  be  appreciated  and  taken  to  the  heart. 


THE  SENSE  OF  SIN  307 

To  say  that  there  is  no  sense  of  sin,  or  that  the 
sense  of  sin  is  defective,  is  only  to  say  in  other 
words  that  there  is  no  repentance,  or  no  adequate 
repentance ;  no  returning  of  the  mind  upon  itself 
deeply  enough,   humbly   enough,   tenderly  and 
hopefully  enough,  to  have  any  healing  or  restor- 
ing effect.     But  how  is  this  spiritual  condition  to 
be  altered  ?     What  is  the  cure  for  it  ?     There  are 
those  who  cannot  be  convinced  that  any  cure  is 
necessary.      In  spite  of  all  Christian  confession 
to  the  contrary,  they  cling  to  the  idea  that  such  a 
returning  of  the  mind  upon  itself  as  would  con- 
stitute repentance  unto  life  and  be  the  proper 
condition  of  pardon  and  acceptance  with  God,  is 
an  experience  which  the  sinful  soul  can  produce 
out  of  its  own  resources,  and  clothed  in  which  it 
can  come  hopefully  to  meet  God.  But  true  repent- 
ance— that  is,  repentance  which  is  not  self-centred, 
but  which  realises  that  sin  is  something  in  which 
God  has  an  interest  as  well  as  we ;  repentance 
which  is  not  merely  a  remorseful  or  apathetic  or 
despairing  regret,  but  a  hopeful,  healing,  sancti- 
fying sorrow — such   repentance  is  born  of  the 
knowledge  of  God,  and  of  what  God  has  done 
for  us  in  our  sins.     It  is  not  a  preliminary  to 
the  Atonement,  nor  a  substitute  for  it,  nor  a  way 
in  which  we  can  be  reconciled  to  God  without 
being  indebted  to  it ;  it  is  its  fruit.     It  is  born  at 
the  Cross  where  we  see  sin  put  away,  not  by  our 
own  regret,  however  sincere  and  profound,  but  by 


3o8  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

the  love  of  God  in  the  Passion  of  His  dear  Son, 
Hence  we  lose  the  only  chance  of  seeing  it,  and 
of  seeing  in  its  true  intensity  the  sense  of  indi- 
vidual responsibility  which  is  part  and  parcel  of 
it,  if  we  give  the  Atonement  anything  less  than 
the  central  place  in  our  preaching.  No  one  is 
really  saved  from  sin  until  he  has  in  relation  to  it 
that  mind  which  Christ  had  when  He  bore  our 
sins  in  His  own  body  on  the  tree.  And  no  motive 
is  potent  enough  to  generate  that  mind  in  sinful 
men  but  the  love  with  which  Christ  loved  us 
when  He  so  gave  Himself  for  us.  It  is  true  to 
say  that  the  Atonement  presupposes  conscience 
and  appeals  to  it,  but  it  is  truer  still  to  say  that 
of  all  powers  in  the  world  it  is  the  supreme 
power  for  creating  and  deepening  conscience. 
One  remembers  again  and  again  the  story  of 
the  first  Moravian  missionaries  to  Greenland, 
who,  after  twenty  years  of  fruitless  toil  in 
indirect  approaches  to  the  savage  mind,  found 
it  suddenly  responsive  to  the  appeal  of  the 
Cross.  Probably  St.  Paul  made  no  mistake  when 
he  delivered  to  the  Corinthians  iv  7rpa)Toi<i  the 
message  of  the  Atonement,  No  one  can  tell  bow 
near  conscience  is  to  the  surface,  or  how  quickly 
in  any  man  it  may  respond  to  the  appeal.  We 
might  have  thought  that  in  Corinth  much  pre- 
liminary sapping  and  mining  would  have  been 
requisite  before  the  appeal  could  be  made  with 
any  prospect   of  success;  but   St.   Paul  judged 


THE  SENSE  OF  SIN  309 

otherwise,  and  preached  from  the  very  outset  the 
great  hope  of  the  gospel,  by  which  conscience  is 
at  once  evoked  and  redeemed.  We  might  think 
that  in  a  Christian  country  conscience  would 
be  nearer  the  surface,  more  susceptible,  more 
conscious  of  its  needs,  more  quickly  responsive 
to  the  appeal  of  the  atonement ;  and  if  we  do  not 
always  find  it  so,  it  is  only,  as  St.  Paul  himself 
puts  it,  because  all  men  have  not  faith.  We 
cannot  get  behind  this  melancholy  fact,  and  give 
the  rationale  of  what  is  in  itself  irrational.  Yet 
all  experience  shows  that  the  gospel  wins  by  its 
magnitude,  and  that  the  true  method  for  the 
evangelist  is  to  put  the  great  things  in  the  fore- 
front. If  this  is  not  the  way  to  the  conscience, 
this  sublime  demonstration  of  the  love  of  God  in 
Christ,  in  which  our  responsibility  as  sinful  men 
is  taken  by  Him  in  all  its  dreadful  reality  and 
made  His  own,  what  is?  In  what,  if  not  in  this, 
can  we  find  the  means  of  appealing  to  all  men, 
and  to  that  which  is  deepest  in  all  ? 

One  other  characteristic  ought  to  distinguish 
evangelical  preaching,  as  preaching  determined 
by  the  Atonement :  it  ought  to  have  a  deep 
impression  of  the  absoluteness  of  the  issues  in 
faith  and  unbelief,  or  let  us  say  in  the  acceptance 
or  rejection  of  the  reconciliation.  In  one  way,  it 
may  be  said,  this  is  always  the  note  of  religion. 
It  is  a  form  of  the  absolute  consciousness,  and 
deals  not  with  a  sliding  scale  but  with  the  blank, 


3IO  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

unqualified  antithesis  of  life  or  death,  weal  or 
woe,  salvation  or  perdition,  heaven  or  hell.  This 
is  true,  yet  of  no  religion  is  it  more  emphatically 
true  than  of  that  which  is  exhibited  in  the  New 
Testament.  It  is  a  life  and  death  matter  we  are 
concerned  with  when  we  come  face  to  face  with 
Christ  and  with  what  He  has  done  for  us.  It  is 
quite  possible  to  preach  with  earnestness,  and 
even  with  persuasiveness,  from  another  stand- 
point. It  is  quite  possible  to  have  a  very  sincere 
admiration  for  goodness,  and  a  very  sincere  desire 
to  be  better  men  than  we  are  and  to  see  others 
better;  it  is  quite  possible  even  to  see  the  charm 
and  beauty  of  Christ's  goodness,  and  to  commend 
it  in  the  most  winning  way  to  men,  and  yet  to 
want  in  preaching  the  very  note  which  is  char- 
acteristic both  of  Christ  and  the  apostles.  Christ 
knew  that  He  was  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  ;  the 
apostles  knew  that  He  had  done  it,  and  had  made 
peace  with  the  blood  of  His  Cross;  and  their 
preaching,  though  it  is  never  overbearing  or 
unjjst,  though  it  never  tries  to  intimidate  men, 
or  (as  one  may  sometimes  have  been  tempted  to 
think  in  a  mission  service)  to  bully  them  into 
faith,  is  as  urgent  and  passionate  as  the  sense  of 
the  atoning  death  can  make  it.  To  receive  the 
reconciliation,  or  not  to  receive  it  —  to  be  a 
Christian,  or  not  to  be  a  Christian — is  not  a 
matter  of  comparative  indifference  ;  it  is  not  the 
case  of  being  a  somewhat  better  man,  or  a  man, 


LIFE  AND  DEATH  ISSUES  311 

perhaps,  not  quite  so  good  ;  it  is  a  case  of  life  or 
death.  It  is  difficult  to  speak  of  this  as  it  ought 
to  be  spoken  of,  and  to  urge  it  in  any  given 
situation  may  easily  expose  the  preacher  to  the 
charge  of  intolerance,  uncharitableness,  or  moral 
blindness;  but  difficult  as  it  may  be  to  preach 
the  gospel  in  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  with  a 
sense  at  the  same  time  of  the  infinite  love  which 
is  in  it,  and  the  infinite  responsibility  which  it 
puts  upon  us,  it  is  not  a  difficulty  which  the 
preacher's  vocation  will  allow  him  to  evade.  He 
may  easily  be  represented  as  saying  that  he  is 
making  the  acceptance  of  his  own  theology  the 
condition  of  acceptance  with  God,  and  arrogating 
to  himself  the  right  to  judge  others ;  but  while 
he  repudiates  such  charges  as  inconsistent  with 
his  whole  relation  both  to  God  and  man,  he  will 
not  abandon  his  conviction  that  the  apostolic 
sense  of  the  infinite  consequences  determined 
by  man's  relation  to  the  gospel  is  justified,  and 
that  it  is  justified  because  it  is  in  harmony  with 
all  that  the  New  Testament  teaches  about  the 
finished  work  of  Christ.  God  has  spoken  His 
last  word  in  His  Son  ;  He  has  done  all  that  He 
can  do  for  men ;  revelation  and  redemption  are 
complete,  and  the  finality  on  which  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  lays  such  emphasis  as  character- 
istic of  everything  belonging  to  the  new  covenant 
ought  to  have  an  echo  in  every  proclamation  of 
it.     If  therefore  we  are  conscious  that  this  note 


312  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

is  wanting  in  our  preaching — that  it  fails  in 
urgency  and  entreaty  —  that  it  is  expository 
merely,  or  attractive,  or  hortatory — that  it  is 
interpretative  or  illuminative,  or  has  the  char- 
acter of  good  advice,  very  good  advice  indeed, 
when  we  come  to  think  of  it, — it  is  probably  time 
to  ask  what  place  in  it  is  held  by  the  Atonement. 
The  proclamation  of  the  finished  work  of  Christ 
is  not  good  advice,  it  is  good  news :  good  news 
that  means  immeasurable  joy  for  those  who 
welcome  it,  irreparable  loss  for  those  who  reject 
it,  infinite  and  urgent  responsibility  for  all.  The 
man  who  has  this  to  preach  has  a  gospel  about 
which  he  ought  to  be  in  dead  earnest :  just 
because  there  is  nothing  which  concentrates  in 
the  same  way  the  judgment  and  the  mercy  of 
God,  there  is  nothing  which  has  the  same 
power  to  evoke  seriousness  and  passion  in  the 
preacher. 

Leaving  out  of  account  its  importance  to  the 
sinner,  the  supreme  interest  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Atonement  is,  of  course,  its  interest  for  the 
evangelist ;  without  a  firm  grasp  of  it  he  can  do 
nothing  whatever  in  his  vocation.  But  what  is 
central  in  religion  must  be  central  also  in  all 
reflection  upon  it,  and  the  theologian  no  less 
than  the  evangelist  must  give  this  great  truth  its 
proper  place  in  his  mind.  I  have  no  intention  of 
outlining  a  system  of  theology  in  which  the 
atonement  made  in  the  death  of  Christ  should 


THE  KEY  TO  REVELATION  313 

be  the  determinative  principle  ;  but  short  of  this, 
it  is  possible  to  Indicate  Its  bearing  and  signifi- 
cance In  regard  to  some  vital  questions. 

For  example,  If  we  have  been  correct  in  our 
appreciation  of  Its  place  In  the  New  Testament, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  as  the  focus  of 
revelation  it*  is  the  key  to  all  that  precedes.  It 
may  not  always  be  historically  true,  but  It  will 
always  be  divinely  true — that  is,  It  will  answer  to 
God's  mind  as  we  can  see  It  now,  if  not  as  it  was 
apprehended  from  stage  to  stage  in  the  history 
of  revelation — if  we  let  the  light  of  the  final 
revelation  of  the  New  Testament  fall  all  along 
upon  the  Old.  The  nature  of  the  unity  which 
belongs  to  Scripture  has  always  been  a  per- 
plexing question — so  perplexing,  indeed,  that  the 
very  existence  of  any  unity  at  all  has  been  denied  ; 
yet  there  Is  an  answer  to  It.  Scripture  converges 
upon  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement ;  It  has  the 
unity  of  a  consentient  testimony  to  a  love  of  God 
which  bears  the  sin  of  the  world.  How  this  is 
done  we  do  not  see  clearly  till  we  come  to  Christ, 
or  till  He  comes  to  us  ;  but  once  we  get  this 
insight  from  Him,  we  get  it  for  revelation  as  a 
whole.  To  Him  bear  all  the  Scriptures  witness; 
and  It  is  as  a  testimony  to  Him,  the  Bearer  of  sin, 
the  Redeemer  who  gave  His  life  a  ransom  for  us, 
that  we  acknowledge  them.  This  is  the  burden 
of  the  Bible,  the  one  fundamental  omnipresent 
truth  to  which  the  Holy  Spirit  bears  witness  by 


314  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

and  with  the  word  in  our  hearts.  This,  at  bottom, 
is  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  Scripture  is 
inspired. 

It  is  worth  while  to  insist  on  this  in  view  of  the 
widespread  confusion  which  prevails  in  regard  to 
inspiration  ;  the  apparent  readiness,  on  the  part  of 
some,  to  give  it  up  as  an  insignificant  or  irrelevant 
idea,  if  not  an  utterly  discredited  one;  and  the 
haphazard  attempts,  on  the  part  of  others,  to  save 
it  piecemeal,  after  abandoning  it  as  a  whole.  The 
truth  is,  the  unily  of  the  Bible  and  its  inspiration 
are  correlative  terms.  If  we  can  discover  a  real 
unity  in  it — as  I  believe  we  can  and  do  when  we 
see  that  it  converges  upon  and  culminates  in  a 
divine  love  bearing  the  sin  of  the  world — then 
that  unity  and  its  inspiration  are  one  and  the 
same  thing.  And  it  is  not  only  inspired  as  a 
whole,  it  is  the  only  book  in  the  world  which 
is  inspired.  It  is  the  only  book  in  the  world  to 
which  God  sets  His  seal  in  our  hearts  when  we 
read  in  search  of  an  answer  to  the  question.  How 
shall  a  sinful  man  be  righteous  with  God?  It  is 
mere  irrelevance  and  misunderstanding  to  talk 
in  this  connection  of  the  '  inspiration '  of  great 
minds  like  .^schylus  or  Plato,  not  to  speak  of 
those  who  have  been  born  and  bred  in  the  Chris- 
tian atmosphere,  like  Dante  or  Shakespeare.  We 
do  not  believe  in  inspiration  because  we  find 
something  in  Isaiah  which  we  do  not  find  in 
iEschylus — though  we  do;  nor  because  we  find 


ATONEMENT  AND  INSPIRATION       315 

something  in  St.  Paul  which  we  do  not  find  in 
Plato — though  again,  and  more  emphatically,  we 
do  ;  we  believe  in  inspiration  because  m  the  whole 
Bible,  from  Isaiah  to  St.  Paul,  and  earlier  and 
later,  there  is  a  unity  of  mind  and  spirit  and  pur- 
pose which  shines  out  on  us  at  last  in  the  atoning 
work  of  Christ.  When  we  approach  the  greatest 
of  human  minds  with  the  problem  of  religion, 
How  shall  a  sinful  man  be  just  with  God?  we 
shall,  no  doubt,  find  sympathy,  for  the  problem 
of  religion  is  a  universal  problem;  we  find 
sympathy,  for  instance,  of  the  profoundest  in 
writers  like  yEschylus  and  Sophocles.  But  when 
we  approach  Scripture  with  this  problem,  we  not 
only  find  sympathy,  but  a  solution  ;  and  with  the 
solution  is  identified  all  that  we  mean  by  inspira- 
tion. All  the  suggestions  of  the  Bible  with 
reference  to  this  problem  converge  upon  the 
Cross.  The  Cross  dominates  everything.  It 
interprets  everything.  It  puts  all  things  in 
their  true  relations  to  each  other.  Usually  those 
who  are  perplexed  about  the  inspiration  of  the 
Bible  discuss  their  difficulties  with  no  considera- 
tion of  what  the  Bible  means  as  a  whole  ;  and  yet 
it  is  only  as  a  whole  that  we  can  attach  any 
meaning  to  its  being  inspired.  There  is  no  sense 
in  saying  that  every  separate  sentence  is  inspired  : 
we  know  that  every  separate  sentence  is  not. 
There  are  utterances  of  bad  men  in  the  Bible, 
and  suggestions  of  the  devil.     Neither  is  there 


3i6  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

any  sense  in  going  through  the  Bible  with  a  blue 
pencil,  and  striking  out  what  is  not  inspired  that 
we  may  stand  by  the  rest.  This  may  have  the 
apologetic  or  educational  advantage  of  com- 
pelling some  people  to  see  that  after  all  abate- 
ments are  made  there  is  a  great  deal  which 
retains  its  authority,  and  imposes  responsibility; 
but  it  is  precarious  and  presumptuous  in  the 
highest  degree.  And  though  it  may  have  the 
appearance  of  greater  plausibility,  it  is  just  as 
futile  to  attempt  to  graduate  the  inspiration  of 
Scripture,  to  mark  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  Divine 
presence  in  the  heart  of  a  writer,  or  the  gradual 
rise  of  the  tide  from  the  remote  beginnings  of 
revelation  till  it  reaches  its  height  in  Christ. 
No  doubt  it  is  a  task  for  the  historian  to  trace 
the  gradual  progress  of  revelation  and  to  indicate 
its  stages,  but  the  historian  would  be  the  first  to 
acknowledge  that  the  questions  so  often  raised 
about  the  inspiration  of  persons  or  books  or 
sentences  or  arguments  are  mostly  unreal.  We 
will  never  know  what  inspiration  is  until  Scrip- 
ture has  resolved  itself  for  us  into  a  unity.  That 
unity,  I  venture  to  say,  will  be  its  testimony  to  a 
love  in  God  which  wc  do  not  earn,  which  we  can 
never  repay,  but  which  in  our  sins  comes  to  meet 
us  with  mercy,  dealing,  nevertheless,  with  our  sins 
in  all  earnest,  and  at  infinite  cost  doing  right  by 
God's  holy  law  in  regard  to  them  ;  a  love  which 
becomes  incarnate  in  the  Lamb  of  God  bearing 


ATONEMENT  AND  CHRIST'S  PERSON     317 

the  sin  of  the  world,  and  putting  it  away  by  the 
sacrifice  of  Himself.  It  is  in  its  testimony  to  this 
that  the  unity  of  Scripture  and  its  inspiration  con- 
sists, and  whoever  believes  in  this  believes  in 
inspiration  in  the  only  sense  which  can  be  ration- 
ally attached  to  the  word. 

The  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  in  the  central 
place  which  Scripture  secures  for  it,  has  decisive 
importance  in  another  way:  it  is  the  proper 
evangelical  foundation  for  a  doctrine  of  the 
Person  of  Christ.  To  put  it  in  the  shortest 
possible  form,  Christ  is  the  Person  who  can  do 
this  work  for  us.  This  is  the  deepest  and  most 
decisive  thing  we  can  know  about  Him,  and  in 
answering  the  questions  which  it  prompts  we  are 
starting  from  a  basis  in  experience.  There  is  a 
sense  in  which  Christ  as  the  Reconciler  confronts 
us.  He  is  doing  the  will  of  God  on  our  behalf, 
and  we  can  only  look  on.  It  is  the  judgment 
and  the  mercy  of  God  in  relation  to  our  sins 
which  we  see  in  Him,  and  His  Presence  and 
work  on  earth  are  a  divine  gift,  a  divine  visita- 
tion. He  is  the  gift  of  God  to  men,  not  the 
offering  of  men  to  God,  and  God  gives  Himself 
to  us  in  and  with  Him.  We  owe  to  Him  all 
that  we  call  divine  life.  On  the  other  hand,  this 
divine  visitation  is  made,  and  this  divine  life  is 
imparted,  through  a  life  and  work  which  are 
truly  human.  The  presence  and  work  of  Jesus 
in  the  world,  even  the  work  of  bearing  sin,  does 


3i8  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

not  prompt  us  to  define  human  and  divine  by 
contrast  with  each  other  :  there  is  no  suggestion 
of  incongruity  between  them.  Nevertheless, 
they  are  both  there,  and  the  fact  that  they 
are  both  there  justifies  us  in  raising  the  question 
as  to  Jesus'  relation  to  God  on  the  one  hand, 
and  to  men  on  the  other.  We  become  sensible, 
as  we  contemplate  this  divine  visitation,  this 
achievement  of  a  work  so  necessary  to  man  yet 
so  transcending  his  powers,  that  Jesus  is  not  in 
the  human  race  one  man  more  to  whom  our 
relation  may  be  as  fortuitous  as  to  any  other. 
Rather  does  the  whole  phenomenon  justify  us 
in  putting  such  a  question  as  Dale's :  What 
must  Christ's  relation  to  men  be  in  order  to 
make  it  possible  that  He  should  die  for  them  ? — 
a  question  leading  to  an  essentially  evangelical 
argument,  that  Christ  must  have  had  an  original 
and  central  relation  to  the  human  race  and  to 
every  member  of  it.  Whether  this  is  the  best 
way  to  express  the  conclusion  need  not  here  be 
considered,  but  that  this  is  the  final  way  to 
approach  the  problem  is  not  open  to  doubt. 

In  this  connection  I  venture  to  emphasise 
again  a  point  referred  to  at  the  close  of  the  first 
chapter.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement 
which  secures  for  Christ  His  place  in  the  gospel, 
and  which  makes  it  inevitable  that  we  should 
have  a  Christology  or  a  doctrine  of  His  Person. 
Reduced   to  the   simplest   religious  expression, 


ATONEMENT  AND  CHRIST'S  TERSON     319 

the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  signifies  that  we 
owe  to  Christ  and  to  His  finished  work  our 
whole  being  as  Christians.  We  are  His  debtors, 
and  it  is  a  real  debt ;  a  debt  infinite,  never 
to  be  forgotten,  never  to  be  discharged.  The 
extraordinary  statement  of  Harnack — as  extra- 
ordinary, perhaps,  in  its  ambiguity  as  in  its  daring 
— that  in  the  gospel  as  Jesus  preached  it  the  Son 
has  no  place  but  only  the  Father,  owes  whatever 
plausibility  it  has  under  the  most  favourable 
construction  to  the  assumption  that  in  the  gospel 
as  Jesus  preached  it  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
an  atoning  work  of  Jesus.  Jesus  did  nothing  in 
particular  by  which  men  become  His  debtors; 
He  only  showed  in  His  own  life  what  the  state 
of  the  case  was  between  God  and  men,  quite 
apart  from  anything  He  did  or  had  to  do.  He 
was  '  the  personal  realisation  and  the  power  of 
the  gospel,  and  is  ever  again  experienced  as 
such.'  One  might  be  tempted  to  criticise  this 
from  Kierkegaard's  point  of  view,  and  to  urge 
that  it  betrays  no  adequate  appreciation  of 
the  gulf  between  Christ  and  sinful  men,  and  of 
the  dreadful  difficulty  of  bridging  it ;  but  it  is 
sufficient  to  say  that  it  departs  so  widely  not 
only  from  the  consciousness  of  primitive  Christi- 
anity as  it  is  reflected  in  the  epistles,  but  from 
the  mind  of  Christ  as  we  have  seen  cause  to 
interpret  it  through  the  gospels,  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  assent  to  it.     Christ   not  only  was 


330  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

something  in  the  world,  He  </?^  something.  He 
did  something  that  made  an  infinite  difference, 
and  that  puts  us  under  an  infinite  obligation  : 
He  bore  our  sins.  That  secures  His  place  in 
the  gospel  and  in  the  adoration  of  the  church. 
That  is  the  impulse  and  the  justification  of 
all  Christologies.  Harnack's  statement,  quoted 
above,  is  meant  to  give  a  religious  justification 
for  lightening  the  ship  of  the  church  by  casting 
Christological  controversy  overboard ;  but  the 
Atonement  always  says  to  us  again.  Consider 
how  great  this  Man  was!  As  long  as  it  holds 
its  place  in  the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  and 
asserts  itself  in  the  church,  as  it  does  in  the  New 
Testament,  as  the  supreme  inspiration  to  praise, 
so  long  will  Christians  find  in  the  Person  of  their 
Lord  a  subject  of  high  and  reverent  thought. 
It  is  a  common  idea  that  Socinianism  (or  Uni- 
tarianism)  is  specially  connected  with  the  denial 
of  the  Incarnation.  It  began  historically  with 
the  denial  of  the  Atonement.  It  is  with  the 
denial  of  the  Atonement  that  it  always  begins 
anew,  and  it  cannot  be  too  clearly  pointed  out 
that  to  begin  here  is  to  end,  sooner  or  later, 
with  putting  Christ  out  of  the  Christian  religion 
altogether. 

It  is  the  more  necessary  to  insist  on  this  point 
of  view  because  there  is  in  some  quarters  a 
strong  tendency  to  put  the  Atonement  cut  of  its 
place,  and  to  concenlrat':  attention  on  the  Incar- 


ATONEMENT  AND  INCARNATION      321 

nation  as  something  which  can  be  appreciated  in 
entire  independence  of  it.  The  motives  for  this 
are  various.  Sometimes  they  may  not  unfairly 
be  described  as  speculative.  '  The  great  aim  of 
the  Christian  Platonists,'  says  Mr.  Inge, '  was  to 
bring  the  Incarnation  into  closest  relation  with 
the  cosmic  process.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that 
no  Christian  philosophy  can  have  any  value 
which  does  not  do  this.'  ^  Those,  therefore,  whose 
interest  is  in  the  cosmic  process,  or  in  articu- 
lating all  that  is  known  as  Christian  into  the 
framework  of  the  universe,  devote  their  attention 
to  the  Person  of  Christ,  and  seek  in  it  the  natural 
consummation,  so  to  speak,  of  all  that  has  gone 
before.  Without  that  Person  the  universe  would 
be  without  a  crown  or  a  head.  It  is  so  con- 
stituted that  only  He  gives  it  unity  and  com- 
pleteness. That  its  unity  had  been  broken 
before  He  came  to  earth,  and  that  He  completed 
it  by  a  work  of  reversal  and  not  of  direct  evolu- 
tion— a  work  which,  however  truly  it  may  be  said 
to  have  carried  out  the  original  idea  of  God,  is 
yet  in  the  strictest  sense  supernatural,  a  redemp- 
tion, not  a  natural  consummation — is  practically 
overlooked.  With  others,  again,  the  motive  may 
be  said  to  be  ethical.  To  put  the  Atonement 
at  the  foundation  of  Christianity  seems  to  them 
to  narrow  it  morally  in  the  most  disastrous  way. 
It  is  as  though  they  lost  the  breadth  and  variety 
^  Contentio  Veritatis,  p.  74. 
X 


322  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

of  interest  and  motive  which  appeal  to  the  con- 
science from  the  life  of  Christ  in  the  pages  of  the 
evangelists.  But  there  is  a  misconception  here. 
Those  who  make  the  Atonement  fundamental  do 
not  turn  their  backs  on  the  gospels.  They  are 
convinced,  however,  that  the  whole  power  of  the 
motives  which  appeal  to  us  from  the  life  of  Jesus 
is  not  felt  until  we  see  it  condensed,  concen- 
trated, and  transcended  in  the  love  in  which  He 
bore  our  sins  in  His  own  body  on  the  tree. 
Others  displace  the  Atonement  for  what  may  be 
called  a  dogmatic  reason.  It  is  a  fixed  point 
with  them  that  so  great  a  thing  as  the  Incarna- 
tion could  not  be  in  any  proper  sense  contingent ; 
the  presence  of  the  Son  of  God  in  the  world 
cannot  be  an  'after-thought'  or  an  'accident'; 
the  whole  intent  of  it  cannot  be  given  in  such 
an  expression  as  'remedial.'  The  universe  must 
have  been  constituted  from  the  first  with  a  view 
to  it,  and  it  would  have  taken  place  all  the  same 
even  though  there  had  been  no  sin  and  no  need 
for  redemption.  When  it  did  take  place,  indeed, 
it  could  not  be  exactly  as  had  been  intended ; 
under  the  conditions  of  the  fall,  the  Incarnation 
entailed  a  career  which  meant  Atonement ;  it 
was  Incarnation  into  a  sinful  race,  and  the  Atone- 
ment was  made  when  the  Son  of  God  accepted 
the  conditions  which  sin  had  determined,  and 
fulfilled  man's  destiny  under  them.  Perhaps 
the  truth  might  be  put  within  the  four  corners 


ATONEMENT  AND  INCARNATION      323 

of  such  a  formula,  but  the  tendency  in  those  who 
adopt  this  point  of  view  is  to  minimise  all  that 
is  said  in  the  New  Testament  about  the  death  of 
Christ  in  relation  to  sin.  The  specific  assertions 
and  definitions  of  the  apostolic  writings  are 
evaded.  They  are  interpreted  emotionally  but 
not  logically,  as  if  the  men  who  say  the  strong 
things  on  this  subject  in  the  New  Testament  had 
said  them  without  thinking,  or  would  have  been 
afraid  of  their  own  thoughts.  The  most  dis- 
tinguished representative  of  this  tendency  in  our 
own  country  was  Bishop  Westcott.  Not  that 
what  has  just  been  said  is  applicable  in  its 
entirety  to  him  ;  but  the  assumption  that  the 
Incarnation  is  something  which  we  can  estimate 
apart  from  the  Atonement,  something  which  has 
a  significance  and  a  function  of  its  own,  inde- 
pendent of  man's  redemption  from  sin,  underlies 
much  of  his  writing,  and  tends  to  keep  him  from 
doing  full  justice  to  apostolic  ideas  on  this  sub- 
ject. The  logic  of  the  position  becomes  apparent 
in  a  writer  like  Archdeacon  Wilson,  who  frankly 
merges  the  Atonement  in  the  Incarnation,  assures 
us  that  in  making  a  distinct  problem  of  the 
former  we  have  been  asking  meaningless  ques- 
tions, getting  meaningless  answers,  and  repelling 
men  from  the  gospel.  '  Let  us  say  boldly  that 
the  Incarnation,  that  is  the  life  and  death  of 
the  Christ — for  the  life  and  death  were  equally 
necessary — is   the   identification   of  the   human 


324  THE  DEATPI  OF  CHRIST 

and  the  divine  life.  This  identification  is  the 
atonement.  There  is  no  other.' ^  One  can  only 
regret  that  this  short  and  easy  method  was  not 
discovered  till  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century ;  anything  less  like  the  terrible  problem 
sin  presented  to  the  apostles,  and  their  intense 
preoccupation  with  it,  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
conceive. 

There  are  three  broad  grounds  on  which  the 
interpretation  of  the  Atonement  as  a  mere  in- 
cident, or  consequence,  or  modification  of  the 
Incarnation — the  Incarnation  being  regarded  as 
something  in  itself  natural  and  intelligible  on 
grounds  which  have  no  relation  to  sin — ought 
to  be  discounted  by  the  evangelist  and  the  theo- 
logian alike,  (i)  It  shifts  the  centre  of  gravity 
in  the  New  Testament.  The  Incarnation  may  be 
the  thought  round  which  everything  gravitates  in 
the  Nicene  Creed,  and  in  the  theology  of  the 
ancient  Catholic  Church  which  found  in  that 
creed  its  first  dogmatic  expression  ;  but  that 
only  shows  how  far  the  first  ecclesiastical  appre- 
hension of  Christianity  was  from  doing  justice 
to  New  Testament  conceptions.  Even  in  the 
gospel  and  the  epistles  of  St.  John,  as  has  been 
shown  above,  the  Incarnation  cannot  be  said 
(without  serious  qualificat'on)  to  have  the  char- 
acter here  claimed  for  it,  and  it  cannot  be 
asserted   with   the   faintest    plausibility   for  the 

>  The  Gospel  of  the  Atonement ^  p.  89. 


ATONEMENT  AND  INCARNATION      325 

synoptic  gospels  or  the  epistles  of  St.  Paul. 
The  New  Testament  knows  nothing  of  an  incar- 
nation which  can  be  defined  apart  from  its 
relation  to  atonement ;  it  is  to  put  away  sin, 
and  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil,  that  even 
in  the  evangelist  of  the  Incarnation  the  Son  of 
God  is  made  manifest.  It  is  not  in  His  being 
here,  but  in  His  being  here  as  a  propitiation  for  the 
sins  of  the  world,  that  the  love  of  God  is  revealed. 
Not  Bethlehem,  but  Calvary,  is  the  focus  of 
revelation,  and  any  construction  of  Christianity 
which  ignores  or  denies  this  distorts  Christianity 
by  putting  it  out  of  focus.  (2)  A  second  ground 
for  resisting  the  tendency  to  put  the  Incarnation 
into  the  place  which  properly  belongs  to  the 
Atonement  is  that  it  is  concerned  under  these 
conditions  with  metaphysical,  rather  than  with 
moral  problems.  Now  Scripture  has  no  interest 
in  metaphysics  except  as  metaphysical  questions 
are  approached  through  and  raised  by  moral 
ones.  The  Atonement  comes  to  us  in  the  moral 
world  and  deals  with  us  there ;  it  is  concerned 
with  conscience  and  the  law  of  God,  with  sin  and 
grace,  with  alienation  and  peace,  with  death  to 
sin  and  life  to  holiness ;  it  has  its  being  and  its 
efficacy  in  a  world  where  we  can  find  our  footing, 
and  be  assured  that  we  are  dealing  with  realities. 
The  Incarnation,  when  it  is  not  defined  by  rela- 
tion to  these  realities — in  other  words,  when  it  is 
not  conceived  as  the  means  to  the  Atonement, 


326  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

but  as  part  of  a  speculative  theory  of  the  world 
quite  independent  of  man's  actual  moral  neces- 
sities— can  never  attain  to  a  reality  as  vivid  and 
profound.  It  can  never  become  thoroughly 
credible,  just  because  it  is  not  essentially  related 
to  anything  in  human  or  Christian  experience 
sufficiently  great  to  justify  it.  It  does  not 
answer  moral  questions,  especially  those  which 
bring  the  sinful  man  to  despair ;  at  best  it 
answers  metaphysical  questions  about  the  rela- 
tion of  the  human  to  the  divine,  about  the  proper 
way  to  define  these  words  in  relation  to  each 
other,  whether  it  be  by  contrast  or  by  mutual 
affinity,  about  the  divine  as  being  the  truth  of  the 
human  and  the  human  as  being  the  reality  of  the 
divine,  and  so  forth.  It  does  not  contain  a  gospel 
for  lost  souls,  but  a  philosophy  for  speculative 
minds.  Now  the  New  Testament  is  a  gospel  for 
lost  souls,  or  it  is  nothing  ;  and  whatever  philo- 
sophy it  may  lead  to  or  justify,  we  cannot  see  that 
philosophy  itself  in  the  light  in  which  it  demands 
to  be  seen,  unless  we  keep  the  gospel  in  its  New 
Testament  place.  If  we  start  in  the  abstract 
speculative  way  there  is  no  getting  out  of  it,  or 
getting  any  specifically  Christian  good  out  of  it 
either;  it  is  only  when  the  Person  of  Christ  is 
conceived  as  necessarily  related  to  a  work  in 
which  we  have  a  life  and  death  moral  interest, 
that  it  has  religious  import,  and  can  be  a  real  sub- 
ject for  us.     There  is  in  truth  only  one  religious 


ATONEMENT  AND  INCARNATION      327 

problem  in  the  world — the  existence  of  sin  ;  and 
one  religious  solution  of  it — the  Atonement,  in 
which  the  love  of  God  bears  the  sin,  taking  it,  in 
all  its  terrible  reality  for  us,  upon  itself.  And 
nothing  can  be  central  or  fundamental  either  in 
Christian  preaching  or  in  Christian  thinking 
which  is  not  in  direct  and  immediate  relation  to 
this  problem  and  its  solution.  (3)  The  third 
ground  on  which  we  should  deprecate  the  obtru- 
sion of  the  Incarnation  at  the  cost  of  the  Atone- 
ment is  that  in  point  of  fact — whether  it  is  an 
inevitable  result  or  not  need  not  be  inquired — it 
tends  to  sentimentality.  It  is  dangerous  to  bring 
into  religion  anything  which  is  not  vitally  re- 
lated to  morals,  and  Incarnation  not  determined 
by  Atonement  is  open  to  this  charge.  The 
Christmas  celebrations  in  many  churches  supply 
all  the  proof  that  is  needed  :  they  are  an  appeal 
to  anything  and  everything  in  man  except  that 
to  which  the  gospel  is  designed  to  appeal.  The 
New  Testament  is  just  as  little  sentimental  as  it 
is  metaphysical :  it  is  ethical,  not  metaphysical ; 
passionate,  not  sentimental.  And  its  passionate 
and  ethical  character  are  condensed  and  guaran- 
teed in  that  atoning  work  of  Christ  which  is  in 
every  sense  of  the  word  its  vital  centre. 

If  it  is  a  right  conception  of  the  Atonement 
which  enables  us  to  attain  to  a  right  conception 
of  the  Person  of  Christ,  similarly  we  may  say  it  is 
through  a  right  conception  of  the  Atonement  that 


328  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

we  come  to  a  right  conception  of  the  nature  or 
character  of  God.  In  the  Atonement  revelation 
is  complete,  and  we  must  have  it  fully  in  view 
in  all  affirmations  we  make  about  God  as  the 
ultimate  truth  and  reality.  The  more  imperfect 
our  conceptions  of  God,  the  more  certainly  they 
tend  to  produce  scepticism  and  unbelief;  and 
nothing  presents  greater  difficulties  to  faith  than 
the  idea  of  a  God  who  either  gives  no  heed  to 
the  sin  and  misery  of  man,  or  saves  sinners,  as  it 
were,  from  a  distance,  without  entering  into  the 
responsibility  and  tragedy  of  their  life  and 
making  it  His  own.  To  put  the  same  thing  in 
other  words,  nothing  presents  greater  difficulties 
to  faith  than  a  conception  of  God  falling  short  of 
that  which  the  New  Testament  expresses  in  the 
words,  God  is  love.  Not  that  this  conception  is 
self-interpreting  or  self-accrediting,  as  is  often 
supposed.  There  is  no  proposition  which  is  more 
in  need  both  of  explanation  and  of  proof  We 
may  say  God  is  love,  and  know  just  as  little 
what  love  means  as  what  God  means.  Love  is 
like  every  word  of  moral  or  spiritual  import  ;  it 
has  no  fixed  meaning,  like  a  word  denoting  a 
physical  object  or  attribute  ;  it  stands,  so  to 
speak,  upon  a  sliding  scale,  and  it  stands  higher 
or  lower  as  the  experience  of  those  who  use  it 
enables  them  to  place  it.  St.  John,  when  he 
placed  it  where  he  did,  was  only  enabled  to  do 
so  by  the  experience  in  which  Christ  was  re- 


ATONEMENT  AND  DOCTRINE         329 

vealed  to  him  as  the  propitiation  of  sins.  It  is 
with  this  in  his  mind  that  he  says,  Hereby  per- 
ceive we  love.  The  word  love,  especially  in  such 
a  proposition  as  God  is  love,  has  to  fill  with  its 
proper  meaning  before  it  can  be  said  to  have  any 
meaning  at  all ;  it  is  used  in  a  thousand  senses 
which  in  such  a  proposition  would  only  be  absurd 
or  profane.  Now  the  person  who  first  uttered 
that  sublime  sentence  felt  his  words  fill  with 
meaning  as  he  contemplated  Christ  sent  by  God 
a  propitiation  for  the  whole  world.  A  God  who 
could  do  that — a  God  who  could  bear  the  sin  of 
the  world  in  order  to  restore  to  man  the  possi- 
bility of  righteousness  and  eternal  life — such  a 
God  is  love.  Such  love,  too,  is  the  ultimate  truth 
about  God.  Rut  apart  from  this  the  apostle 
would  not  liave  said  that  God  is  love,  nor  is  it 
quite  real  or  specifically  Christian  for  any  one 
else  to  say  so.  There  is  no  adequate  way  of  tell- 
ing what  he  means.  Until  it  is  demonstrated 
as  it  is  in  the  Atonement,  love  remains  an 
indeterminate  sentimental  expression,  with  no 
clear  moral  value,  and  with  infinite  possibilities 
of  moral  misunderstanding ;  when  it  fills  with 
meaning  through  the  contemplation  of  the  Atone- 
ment, the  i' anger  of  mere  sentimentalism  and 
other  moral  dangers  are  provided  against,  for 
love  in  the  Atonement  is  inseparable  from  law. 
The  universal  moral  elements  in  the  relations  of 
God  and  man  are  unreservedly  acknowledged,  and 


330  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

it  is  in  the  cost  at  which  justice  is  done  to  them 
in  the  work  of  redemption  that  the  love  of  God 
is  revealed  and  assured.  We  see  then  its  reality 
and  its  scale.  We  see  what  it  is  willing  to  do, 
or  rather  what  it  has  done.  We  see  something 
of  the  breadth  and  length  and  depth  and  height 
which  pass  knowledge.  We  believe  and  know 
the  love  which  God  has  in  our  case,  and  can  say 
God  is  love.  And  it  is  from  the  vantage-ground 
of  this  assurance  that  we  look  out  henceforth  on 
ail  the  perplexities  of  the  world  and  of  our  own 
life  in  it.  We  are  certain  that  it  is  in  God  to 
take  the  burden  and  responsibility  of  it  upon 
Himself.  We  are  certain  that  it  is  in  the  divine 
nature  not  to  be  indifferent  to  the  tragedy  of 
human  life,  not  to  help  it  from  afar  off,  not  to 
treat  as  unreal  in  it  the  very  thing  which  makes 
it  real  to  us — the  eternal  difference  of  right  and 
wrong — but  to  bear  its  sin,  and  to  establish  the 
law  in  the  very  act  and  method  of  justifying  the 
ungodly.  It  is  a  subcjidinate  remark  in  this  con- 
nection, but  not  for  that  reason  an  insignificant 
one,  that  this  final  revelation  of  love  in  God  is  at 
the  same  time  the  final  revelation  of  sin :  for  sin, 
too,  needs  to  be  revealed,  and  there  is  a  theo- 
logical doctrine  of  it  as  well  as  an  experience 
antecedent  to  all  doctrines.  Love  is  that  which 
is  willing  to  take  the  responsibility  of  sin  upon  it 
for  the  sinner's  sake,  and  which  does  so ;  and  sin, 


ATONEMENT  AND  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS    331 

in  the  last  resort — sin  as  that  which  cuts  man 
finally  off  from  God — is  that  which  is  proof 
against  the  appeal  of  such  love. 

There  is  another  great  department  of  Christian 
science  to  which  the  Atonement  is  of  fundamental 
importance — the  department  of  Christian  ethics, 
the  scientific  interpretation  of  the  new  life.  It 
has  undoubtedly  been  a  fault  in  much  systematic 
theology,  that  in  dealing  with  the  work  which 
Christ  finished  in  His  death  it  has  shown  no 
relation,  or  no  adequate  and  satisfactory  relation, 
between  that  death  and  the  Christian  life  which 
is  born  of  faith  in  it.  There  must  be  such  a 
relation,  or  there  would  be  no  such  thing  in  the 
world  as  Christian  life  or  the  Christian  religion. 
The  only  diflliculty,  indeed,  in  formulating  it  is 
that  the  connection  is  so  close  and  immediate 
that  it  might  be  supposed  to  be  impossible  to 
hold  apart,  even  in  imagination,  the  two  things 
which  we  wish  to  define  by  relation  to  each  other. 
But  it  may  be  put  thus.  The  death  of  Christ, 
interpreted  as  the  New  Testament  interprets  it, 
constitutes  a  great  appeal  to  sinful  men.  It 
appeals  for  faith.  To  yield  to  its  appeal,  to 
abandon  oneself  in  faith  to  the  love  of  God 
which  is  manifested  in  it,  is  to  enter  into  life. 
It  is  the  only  way  in  which  a  sinful  man  can 
enter  into  life  at  all.  The  new  life  is  constituted 
in  the  soul  by  the  response  of  faith  to  the  appeal 


33*  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

of  Christ's  death,  or  by  Christ's  death  evoking 
the  response  of  faith.  It  does  not  matter  which 
way  we  put  it.  We  may  say  that  we  have  re- 
ceived the  Atonement,  and  that  the  Atonement 
regenerates ;  or  that  we  have  been  justified  by 
faith,  and  that  justification  regenerates ;  or  that 
we  have  received  an  assurance  of  God's  love 
which  is  deeper  than  our  sin,  and  extends  to  all 
our  life  past,  present,  and  to  come  ;  and  that 
such  an  assurance,  which  is  the  gift  of  the  Spirit 
shed  abroad  in  our  hearts,  regenerates :  it  is  all 
one.  It  is  the  same  experience  which  is  described, 
and  truly  described,  in  every  case.  But  both  the 
power  and  the  law  of  the  new  life,  the  initiation 
of  which  can  be  so  variously  expressed,  are  to 
be  found  in  the  atoning  death  of  Christ,  by 
which  faith  is  evoked,  and  there  only ;  and  the 
Atonement,  therefore,  is  the  presupposition  of 
Christian  ethics  as  it  is  the  inspiring  and  control- 
ling force  in  Christian  life.  Nothing  can  beget 
in  the  soul  that  life  of  which  we  speak  except 
the  appeal  of  the  Cross,  and  what  the  appeal  of 
the  Cross  does  beget  is  a  life  which,  in  its  moral 
quality,  corresponds  to  the  death  of  Christ  itself. 
It  is  a  life,  as  it  has  been  put  already,  which  has 
that  death  in  it,  and  which  only  lives  upon  this 
condition.  It  is  a  life  to  which  sin  is  all  that 
sin  was  to  Christ — law,  and  holiness,  and  God, 
all  that  law  and  holiness  and  God  were  to  Christ 


ATONEMENT  AND  CHRISTIAN  ETHICS    333 

as  He  hung  upon  the  tree ;  a  life  which  is  com- 
plete and  self-sufficing,  because  it  is  sustained 
at  every  moment  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Atone- 
ment. This  is  why  St.  Paul  is  not  afraid  to 
trust  the  new  life  to  its  own  resources,  and  why 
he  objects  equally  to  supplementing  it  by  legal 
regulations  afterwards,  or  by  what  are  supposed 
to  be  ethical  securities  beforehand.  It  does 
not  need  them,  and  is  bound  to  repel  them  as 
dishonouring  to  Christ.  To  demand  moral 
guarantees  from  a  sinner  before  you  give  him 
the  benefit  of  the  Atonement,  or  to  impose  legal 
restrictions  on  him  after  he  has  yielded  to  its 
appeal,  and  received  it  through  faith,  is  to  make 
the  Atonement  itself  of  no  effect  St.  Paul,  taught 
by  his  own  experience,  scorned  such  devices. 
The  Son  of  God,  made  sin  for  men,  so  held  his 
eyes  and  heart,  entered  into  his  being  with  such 
annihilative,  such  creative  power,  that  all  he  was 
and  all  he  meant  by  life  were  due  to  Him  alone. 
He  does  not  look  anywhere  but  to  the  Cross 
for  the  ideals  and  motives  of  the  Christian  :  they 
are  all  there.  And  the  more  one  dwells  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  tries  to  find  the  point  of 
view  from  which  to  reduce  it  to  unity,  the  more 
is  he  convinced  that  the  Atonement  is  the  key  to 
Christianity  as  a  whole.  '  The  Son  of  Man  came 
to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many.'  '  Christ  died 
for  the  ungodly.'    '  He  bore  our  sins  in  His  own 


334 


THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 


body  on  the  tree.'  '  He  is  the  propitiation  for 
the  whole  world,'  '  I  beheld,  and  lo,  a  lamb 
as  it  had  been  slain.'  It  is  in  words  like  these 
that  we  discover  the  open  secret  of  the  new 
creation. 


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